


honeymouthed and full of wildflowers

by pududoll (aprilclash)



Series: I filled the garden with gold [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Abuse of Authority, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Character Development, Eventual Happy Ending, Explicit Sexual Content, Hate to Love, Implied Mpreg, M/M, Power Dynamics, Power Imbalance, Slow Burn, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2020-03-26 08:22:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 32
Words: 160,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19001992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aprilclash/pseuds/pududoll
Summary: “Honestly, losing a war might almost be a better option than this.”Mark is marrying Donghyuck to save his kingdom, but he wonders who will save him from his husband, or his husband from him.





	1. i. boy sweetvoiced standing in the fading light

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this in my wips since February I think, but I took a free day from the endless list of things I should do before the semester ends and I finally managed to edit it enough to publish it.  
> Many thanks to the three people who read this in advance and hyped me up (AND SENT ME SNIPPETS OF UST SCENES YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE TYSM!)  
> I don't know when I will write for this au again so don't expect regular updates. And please read the warnings.  
> Enjoy ♥
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> [❃ PLAYLIST ❃](https://twitter.com/aprilclaws/status/1156324062047670272)
> 
>  
> 
> [❃ MAP OF THE CONTINENT❃](https://twitter.com/sunshyun/status/1165987193430663168)  
> by @sunshyun  
> 
> 
>  
> 
> Translations:  
> \- [Russian](https://ficbook.net/readfic/8583699)  
> \- [Indonesian](https://www.wattpad.com/story/203144238)  
> Now with beautiful art:  
> \- [I am weary of all your words and soft, strange ways](https://twitter.com/yaori94/status/1135977932478791680),  
> [this absolutely breathtaking Donghyuck from chapter six](https://twitter.com/yaori94/status/1144652690246504454),  
> [ kissing in the pool from chapter eleven](https://twitter.com/yaori94/status/1157721786416603137),  
> looks from honeymouthed [1](https://twitter.com/yaori94/status/1199686874152890369) and [2](https://twitter.com/yaori94/status/1212851080742264838),  
> [donghyuck seeing the snow for the first time](https://twitter.com/yaori94/status/1223649166330646528) by @yaori94  
> \- [markhyuck during the council scene from chapter two](https://twitter.com/kiwiddalgi/status/1139273786539347968) by @kiwiddalgi  
> \- [a stunning golden Donghyuck](https://twitter.com/lunnarsystem/status/1147581799004016641),  
> [perfect prince donghyuck](https://twitter.com/lunnarsystem/status/1164988534069125122),  
> [prince mark lee hours open for the next 43 centuries](https://twitter.com/lunnarsystem/status/1167136493506314240),  
> [sparring markhyuck in chapter 9](https://twitter.com/lunnarsystem/status/1154467505185918979) by @lunnarsystem  
> -[ this amazing art](https://twitter.com/sunshyun/status/1152984145288675328) for a honeymouthed book by @sunshyun  
> \- [princess Dongsoon of the Southen Islands concept art](https://twitter.com/_EMPATHV/status/1158067485175930880) by @_EMPATHV  
> \- [ruin, glorious and golden and still ruin](https://twitter.com/temporaryfxxx/status/1161323539561160705) by @temporaryfxxx  
> \- [ donghyuck with long hair](https://twitter.com/kiwiddalgi/status/1165664781493293056) by twitter user @kiwiddalgi  
> \- [this golden donghyuck fanart](https://twitter.com/ShinyMarkhyuck/status/1165681565936050179) gifted to me by wattpad user @johnten69 (they also write fics, check them out <3)  
> \- [jeno and jaemin concept arts](https://twitter.com/milka__smilee/status/1158067880228872192) \+ [colored version of jeno](https://twitter.com/milka__smilee/status/1158077669742788609) by @milka__smilee for hm's spinoff (moonkissed)  
> \- [hyuck concept art](https://twitter.com/hoshimochim/status/1164967775028285440) and [more hyuck concept art](https://twitter.com/hoshimochim/status/1165296199890591744) by @hoshimochim  
> \- [markhyuck dancing together](https://twitter.com/oddjetlag/status/1166754038278287361) by @oddjetlag  
> \- [the prince consort is lovely](https://twitter.com/justonce_ismile/status/1168368702020083712) by @justonce_ismile  
> \- [Exhibit No. 6: Crown Prince Minhyung](https://twitter.com/senpaixxx0110/status/1169642651768852480) by @senpaixxx0110  
> \- Sailor Moon art concepts [1](https://twitter.com/127dh/status/1204870666882834438) and [2](https://twitter.com/127dh/status/1203401596488605696) by @127dh  
> \- [Donghyuck wearing Mark's colors](https://bigfatkiss4mark.tumblr.com/post/190733349052/honeymouthed-after-many-months-spent-hidden-away) by bigfatkiss4mark  
> \- [Prince Jaemin](https://twitter.com/Kwonstellation9/status/1228708761868500997) by @Kwonstellation9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- [chapter title inspiration](https://avolitorial.tumblr.com/post/180493596527/bracketed-from-translation-by-anne-carson)

It’s Yukhei that bring him the news, during a cold and fragrant evening of early spring. Mark is in the courtyard, his back on the ground, dust in his eyes and on his brows and under his nails, dust inside his nostrils and throat as he breathes heavily, open mouthed. He’s holding his chest with one hand, where his lungs are burning – asking for mercy, asking for more, – and his hip with the other, covering the bruise the swordmaster left on him during training.

He can smell Yukhei’s scent when the boy is still in the garden, its strong, bossy note crushing the shy aroma of flowers. Yukhei is leather and jokes by the fire, the smell of Mark’s best friend, the smell of the second in command when Mark will be king. Today, though, there’s some kind of spice to him, some kind of urgency.

“Mark!” he screams, adding a choked, “Your Highness!” when the swordmaster glares at him for his lack of manners.

“What?” Mark exhales. He blinks, but even his eyelashes hurt from the movement. He can faintly make out through the thin sheen of sweat perched on his nose, the way Zhoumi, swordmaster, first knight of the kingdom and the prince’s personal fencing teacher, glares at his young cousin.

“The prince is training, Yukhei,” he starts, very disapproving, but Yukhei cuts him off – something he would never, ever do unless it was a real emergency – and stares at Mark with wide eyes, panting against the cold air of the night.

“You have to come… Now…” He can barely speak through the gulps of air. “Something… Something happened… Your father…” He must have run straight from the throne room. Mark rolls up to his feet, despite the pain, despite the fatigue weighing his limbs down, at the mention of his father. His hand finds the sword on the ground and he’s barely aware of Zhoumi unsheathing his own, ready to defend his king, when Yukhei raises his hand to stop them.

“No, no, no danger,” he says, the words scratchy against his throat. “A messenger, from the South.”

Mark’s eyes narrow in confusion for a moment, before Yukhei continues.

“Your betrothed, she just presented… She’s an Alpha, Mark.”

A deep silence falls on the courtyard, broken only by Yukhei’s harsh painting and the sharp sound of Zhoumi’s sword finding its place in the sheath. There’s silence in Mark’s head too, for a moment, some kind of white, empty sound, before his thoughts rush back in with enough force to break the dam of his stupor.

An Alpha. Which means she can’t give Mark an heir. Which means the marriage, the alliance, is off. And with the North in arms, ready to march on their lands, what kind of hope do they have without an alliance with the Southern Islands? There is no future for them if the war happens.

“Are you sure?” he asks, breathless.

“The messenger came from the palace. It had the seal of the royal family, there’s no doubt about it.”

What now? What to do now? “Are we really going to war, then?” To our annihilation, to our utter defeat. First us and then… the islands. Just because one girl couldn’t be an Omega, or even a Beta.

“No,” Yukhei says, shaking his head. “The engagement is still valid.”

“I can’t possibly marry an Alpha,” Mark replies. “Who’s gonna bear my children, then?”

He can read in Yukhei’s eyes that he won’t like the answer, but he asks anyway. This is the small relief his parents have accorded him. At least he can know in advance, and from his best friend – as if that could be enough to soften the blow – instead of from the lips of a cocky messenger from the South, what is going to happen to him and to his kingdom.

“The Crown Prince, her twin brother, he also presented on the same day. An Omega.”

Mark’s blood runs cold at the thought, so cold it feels like it’s stopped running altogether and there’s just ice in his veins, as if someone were to touch him he’d shatter in thousand little pieces. He’s faintly aware of both Zhoumi and Yukhei taking a step back, giving him space to organize his thoughts before they explode.

“Honestly,” Mark says when he finally manages to calm down, “losing a war might almost be a better option than this.”

❃

The thing is, Mark thinks, as he lets his mother braid flowers in his hair – traditional flowers, red and white, for prosperity, for luck, for a new beginning, the flowers you can only wear once in your life, the day of your vows – he’s not even sure he’s the one who’s gonna suffer the most from this arrangement.

Sure, he hates Donghyuck, and Donghyuck hates him back with an intensity that Mark is not sure he can match, (although he tries, oh, he tries.) But at least Mark still has his kingdom, his people, his family. His life.

Donghyuck was raised to inherit, to be a king. No one ever assumed he could be anything other than an Alpha, no one taught him humility. Mark is not sure anyone could have, anyone ever could, which is really disheartening considering that this inconvenient duty now falls upon him. Because if he lets Donghyuck misbehave, if he lets Donghyuck disrespect him, out of pettiness or out of ignorance or simply out of despair, if he can’t even control his husband, his mate, his Omega, how is he supposed to control a kingdom? Mark knows, he’s perfectly aware of it, that Donghyuck is untrained, that Donghyuck is untamed and possibly untameable, that Donghyuck is impossible, out of anyone’s control.

“Donghyuck agreed to do this, you know?”

Mark turns abruptly to meet his brother’s gentle face, escaping the gentle pressure of his mother’s hands on his hair.

“Don’t upset him too much,” she says, braiding the last small daisy in Mark’s hair before she leaves her two boys alone.

Sungmin flops down on the chair, crosses his legs and stares at Mark like he used to stare at the little birds in the aviary when he was a child. With a mixture of pity and amazement.

“I went to talk to Dongsoon yesterday,” he says, his eyes fixed on the crown of flowers on Mark’s head. “She told me her brother volunteered to take her place.”

Mark’s heart squeezes painfully at the idea of Dongsoon talking to his brother and not to Mark himself. They were never particularly close, Mark and Dongsoon, but he liked her. He had imagined a future with her. And not with… her asshole of a brother who always told Mark he would never, ever let him marry his sister, since they were six and seven years old and Donghyuck was taller than him.

“He didn’t have to do that, his parents wouldn’t have forced him to marry since he had never prepared for this life. They could’ve waited until one of the younger princes presented.”

Still, they could’ve both presented as Betas, Mark thinks. And with boys, only an Omega can carry. And this marriage will not be valid without a child, a son or a daughter sharing the blood of their two royal families. Moreover, Mark suspects Donghyuck simply didn’t want any of his siblings to end up marrying Mark. He probably even thought he was saving them. From Mark. What a fucking martyr, Mark thinks, clicking his tongue.

“Be nice to him, Minhyung,” Sungmin says, using Mark’s birthname, the name he had to give up when he presented and was chosen as the Crown Prince for right of blood. Sungmin is the only one who still uses this name, the only one who has the right to. By presenting as an Alpha, Mark took the kingdom away from him, the Beta eldest son. There’s no animosity between them, but sometimes Sungmin still uses that old name, to remind Mark that, Alpha or not, he’s still the second born.

“Has he ever been nice to me, though?”

“Just,” Sungmin repeats, eyes narrowing. “Don’t be mean. He has nothing left.”

Somehow, the thought that other people – Mark’s own family, even – are really seeing Donghyuck as a martyr, that they’re already siding with him and not with Mark in an imaginary war that hasn’t even begun, makes Mark’s blood burn even hotter.

He shakes his head so violently a couple of petals fall down, like small red and white snowflakes, on the cold stone ground. He turns his back to his brother to leave the room, catching his image reflected on the window, just for a moment. Red and white, with a dash of gold. The crown on his head has never been lighter and has never felt heavier.

❃

Donghyuck is wearing gold, Mark faintly realizes, when they stand next to each other in front of the stone altar to pronounce the vows under the sun and the clouds, before the goddess of the sky.

They haven’t seen each other in years, the last time before either of them presented, and Donghyuck must have changed, just like Mark is sure he has changed from the gangly, awkward kid he used to be in his teens. Yet, Mark doesn’t want to look at Donghyuck. He doesn’t know if it’s the subtle fear of finding him suddenly attractive, of discovering that presenting has honed him, reshaped him in a way that might make people – even Mark – find him delectable instead of the big pain in the ass he’s always been. Or maybe he’s just trying to delay the inevitable. Having to stare in the eyes of the person who will stand next to you for the rest of your life and finding only hatred there is a heavy burden to carry on a wedding day.

Donghyuck shifts and Mark feels the impalpable caress of silk against his ankles, the fluttering of Donghyuck’s tunic echoing his fidgeting. From the corner of his eyes, Mark can only see the faintest glittering of gold. He cannot smell Donghyuck over the fragrance of the flowers the boy is carrying, the same flowers burning in the braziers and lying pressed and tied together in little baskets scattered around the venue. Jasmine, lemonflower and freesia. Honeysuckle.

It’s an old tradition, the practice of keeping the two mates from smelling each other before the ending of the ceremony. Mark has heard two servants at the palace say it’s romantic, a way to build the anticipation, but it couldn’t be farther from the truth. It started as a precaution, in case the spouses were not compatible and decided to break the engagement upon their first meeting. Now, in present times, most betrothed meet each other at least once, to confirm their affinity, but both Donghyuck’s parents, as well as Mark’s, decided that there was no need to do that. Affinity or not, they would have to marry anyway – they are marrying anyway, right now, because an alliance is the less painful, the fastest, truly, the only way to prevent a war. Well, at least Mark already knows he and Donghyuck are not compatible, though he can’t find any solace in this particular knowledge.

Mark cannot smell Donghyuck and he stubbornly refuses to look at him, but there’s no way to avoid hearing the sound of his voice when Donghyuck pronounces his vows. It used to be high-pitched and annoying in the past, the voice of a kid who talked too much and always about the wrong things, in the wrong way. It used to give Mark some of his worst headaches. Now it’s soft, curling at the edges, like nectar trickling down the wounds of the trees in summer, like a lazy, sunny afternoon to spend lying on the grass, listening to the droning buzz of cicadas, like…

“I do.”

“You may now exchange the rings.”

Donghyuck turns first and the first thing Mark sees is gold powder on his cheeks, his brow, the Cupid’s arc, smeared on the upper lip. It’s light and impalpable, capturing all the fading light of the day and making it shine on his skin, a golden rainbow.

The second thing Mark sees is the hardness in Donghyuck’s eyes, a harsh contrast with the softness of his features, with the light sculpting his cheekbones. There’s rage in those eyes, there’s fear and defeat and in defeat there’s a challenge, there’s a resistance, and behind everything there’s a weariness, a helplessness that Mark recognizes because he’s seen it in his own eyes too. They’re here because it’s their duty. Mark’s first duty as a future king, Donghyuck’s last duty as a future king. They’re here because of hope. But they don’t want to be here, neither of them, and there’s not turning back.

The third thing Mark sees is his mother’s golden chain, the one she was wearing on her own wedding day, glinting faintly at the dip of Donghyuck’s collarbones. He doesn’t immediately understand why the sight of it stirs an uncomfortable feeling inside him. There’s something amiss, something he’s not catching. It is tradition for an Omega to wear this kind of golden trinkets, chains and lockets and circlets, shining at their neck and wrists to point the way of the mating bite like a precious compass. Then he realizes, it’s not the chain. It’s Donghyuck, who was once the Crown Prince, and a Crown Prince would never wear a chain, such a powerful symbol of constraint, on his body. But this is also Donghyuck, and he’s an Omega, and his neck is bare under the chains, like an offer, and Mark has never seen him show so much skin before and he can’t help but follow the glimmer of gold smeared on Donghyuck's throat, mesmerized.

Then, Mark realizes he has stared a little too much, that everyone is waiting, that Donghyuck has stopped breathing, his body tense like a bowstring, stretched thin and held in position, ready to shoot. Donghyuck’s archery posture has always been better than Mark’s, it’s always been perfect. There’s not a single instance of hesitation in the way he extends his fist towards Mark and opens it slowly, revealing the simple gold band in it. Mark has been holding his own so tight he’s surprised he’s not bleeding.

Their hands brush slightly as Donghyuck puts the ring on Mark, as Mark does the same with Donghyuck. Donghyuck’s fingers are hot and clammy, Mark’s cold and nervous. Mark closes his eyes for a moment, willing himself to calm down when he misses Donghyuck’s finger on the first try. They don’t let go – they cannot let go, not until the ceremony is over. The cry of the cicadas drones out the cheering of the guests, but not the words of the officiant.

“You may now kiss.”

Mark takes a step forward, eyes finding Donghyuck’s. He’s pretty, prettier than Dongsoon has ever looked in Mark’s eyes, but he has been raised to be a king when she hasn’t. She will be a queen, and she will be a beautiful queen, but Donghyuck has been groomed to look like the most precious, the most powerful, the brightest star in the firmament. He was raised to be a king and now he will have to spend the rest of his life serving another king. A king he hates.

Mark doesn’t kiss Donghyuck on the lips. He slowly raises his hand – the hand still clasped against Donghyuck’s, their twin rings kissing silently as they move together – and takes Donghyuck’s wrist to his mouth. Donghyuck smells like wild flowers, like wedding flowers, like honey, like the sweet wine he had to drink before the ceremony, and under all that perfume and the silk and the fear, he smells like ruin.

Mark understands now, all the things they say about Omega and the way they smell and the way they taste, enticing, like something too good to have. For a moment he forgets where he is, for a moment he wishes he could follow Donghyuck’s veins like a secret path that leads to his scent gland, where he would be able to breathe him in him without the disturbance of the perfume, and then further, to his mouth, to taste him at the source and see if he’s really as sweet as he smells – and how could he not be? He’s an Omega, honeymouthed and full of wildflowers.

Mark presses his lips to the inside of Donghyuck’s wrist instead, where the skin is smooth and thin like pink paper, pulled taut over the vein, where every kiss is like a prayer whispered to Donghyuck’s pulse, his scent is so thick it’s almost solid on the tip of Mark’s tongue.

Donghyuck freezes and his scent flares up, impossibly sweet. He looks like he wants to pull his hand away, but he doesn’t dare.

There’s a moment of silence, like the entire universe is standing at the edge of a crevice, ready to capsize into the darkness or become light enough to fly, where silence condenses the world into the expanse of skin where Mark’s lips are kissing Donghyuck’s heartbeat. Then, everyone gets up and starts clapping, throwing flowers and coins at the feet of the newly married couple. Only then Mark lets Donghyuck’s wrist go, and then boy yanks his hand back and hastily hides it under the golden sleeve of his tunic.

It is done. Almost.

❃

Later, when Yukhei asks him why he didn’t kiss his husband, Mark shrugs and says he didn’t really feel like doing it. “He’s just Donghyuck, you know? He’s an insufferable brat, Omega or not. Why would I want to kiss him?”

Yukhei blinks, and it’s unclear whether he drank from the chalice of Mark’s lies or not, but he does not ask further, something Mark silently thanks him for. To everyone else’s questions about the kiss Mark just answers he didn’t want to overwhelm Donghyuck, who wasn’t even supposed to be an Omega, by claiming him in front of everyone. His subjects praise him for being a considerate mate before a considerate Crown Prince. His parents smile, proud and a little emotional. His brother nods, approving. Only Donghyuck scowls, unimpressed and even a little offended, the beginning of an incredulous scoff making its way on his carefully painted face. _You could’ve tried,_ his dark eyes seem to say, under all that contempt. _You should’ve tried, Your Highness._ Mark imagines Donghyuck’s airy, breathy voice saying it. (It makes his blood boil and not all of it is rage.)

Truthfully, Mark would have liked to try. Truthfully, for a moment there was nothing Mark wanted more than to try, even just to put this Omega – this particular Omega – in his place in front of everyone. Judging from Donghyuck’s murderous expression, he’s not sure he would still have his lips intact, had he really tried.

Mark sighs, turns around and asks Yukhei to find him some flower wine, thick and sweet. Yukhei’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

“You’re not supposed to drink,” he whispers, but he leaves to do that anyway, forever Mark’s best friend and only ally, even when Mark is doing something he shouldn’t do – especially when Mark is doing something he shouldn’t do.

He’s right. Mark shouldn’t drink, not when the banquet is almost over and soon it will be time for the wedding night. But, if these are the premises, Mark is not even sure he will survive the night, so he takes the goblet Yukhei holds out for him and takes a tentative sip.

The wine is warm, just taken from the fire, and after the first strong taste of alcohol burning his throat it leaves behind an aftertaste of honey and flowers. Mark meets Donghyuck’s eyes on the other side of the room and before someone, anyone, can stop him, he marches towards his new husband, sliding on the chair next to Donghyuck and turning over, slightly, until their thighs are touching.

Donghyuck is alone. His sister is dancing somewhere with Mark’s brother, his parents are making small chat with the Lord that controls the coastal line in front of their kingdom. Even Jeno, Donghyuck’s best friend and his advisor (if Donghyuck had been king, of course) is nowhere to be found. Yet, Donghyuck doesn’t seem out of place at the table. Mark would look awkward, sitting there with nothing to do, almost forgotten, but Donghyuck just looks intimidating and too royal to mingle.

“Drinking before your wedding night?” he asks, without looking at Mark. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll miss the target?”

His hair has come down, he must have ran his hand through it one time too many. He looks soft in a fragile way, unkempt, like a crumpled petal ready to fall on the ground at the first murmur of summer rain.

 _Wouldn’t you like that? For me to be too drunk for our wedding night?_ The question dances on Mark’s lips. He purses them to keep the words from spilling out and upset Donghyuck, and wordlessly lays the goblet on the table between the two of them. Donghyuck studies it for a moment, his face unreadable. The smell of the wine is almost stronger than his scent, and they’re both so sweet that even Mark’s Alpha nose can barely pick them apart.

“For me?” asks Donghyuck in the end, finally looking up and into Mark’s eyes. It could be a sign of trust but somehow Donghyuck turns it into an act of defiance. “You think things will be easier if I’m drunk? Is that how you want me? Pliant?”

“Pliant and quiet, if possible” Mark answers, and this time he can’t stop himself, the words tumble down from his mouth like a ravine, propelled down by at least ten years of having to suffer Donghyuck’s verbal jabs, unable to talk back.

It feels fucking good, but only for a moment. Mark smells it before he sees it, the way rage burns through Donghyuck’s scent. It doesn’t sour it, just makes it stronger, deeper, like adding pure pigment to colored water and watching it darken in lazy, billowing wreaths.

“Then you married the wrong person” Donghyuck hisses. “I will not be pliant, nor quiet, I’m not a...”

“You are,” Mark cuts him off. He catches Donghyuck’s wrist, ignores the outrage in Donghyuck’s face at being touched without permission. He holds tighter. “You are going to calm down now. There are people here.”

Donghyuck immediately deflates.

There are indeed people here. Traders, nobles, ambassadors from other countries. A young prince of the Northern Empire, probably sent to check how strong this union would be in wake of a possible march South, though he seems more interested in flirting with the wine boys. There are people and they pretend not to look, but they’re all looking, they’re all waiting, for a slip or a crack, for the dam to break. And Mark and Donghyuck, they have to look unbreakable, they have to look invincible and Donghyuck knows. The way he digs his nails in Mark’s wrist doesn’t match the way he sits back and smiles, the myrth never reaching his eyes.

They sit together in silence and Mark can only blame himself for the awkward tension. He doesn’t regret what he said, Donghyuck deserved it after all, but Mark still pushes the goblet towards him.

“You should drink it,” he says, “it’ll hurt less that way.”

“I’d rather hurt than enjoy it,” Donghyuck answers through gritted teeth, and Mark is for a moment too long tempted to talk back, to bend Donghyuck on his lap and teach him how to talk to an Alpha, but he just gets up, brushes imaginary dust from his paint and flashes Donghyuck a fake, brilliant smile.

“It shall be as you wish, darling,” he says, before he saunters away to dance with his mother.

Fuck Donghyuck. Really, fuck him. Mark should, some day.

❃

But not tonight. Tonight he can’t, Mark realizes, as he follows Donghyuck into the room, their room.

(Not Mark’s room, the room where he was born, where he grew up, where he presented. Where he had his first rut, where he had his first kiss – a girl who smelled like mint and river – and his second – a princess of the Southern Islands, who tasted like honey and flower wine and whom Mark would never wed. Mark’s room smells like him, like all the seasons of him, what he was, what he’s always been, and the foreboding of what he will be. He would have brought someone who loved there, to tell them, “This was my world and now it’s our world.”

But Mark doesn’t love Donghyuck, and their room is new, so that they can imprint both their smells on it, so that Donghyuck doesn’t feel like an intruder. It doesn’t matter what the room smells like, Donghyuck is an intruder. Donghyuck is an intruder and he smells like ruin, like blinding heat, the imprint of the sun on your eyelids at noon, the harsher you squint to get rid of it the hotter it burns in your mind. And Mark can’t, he can’t, he won’t.)

This is what he decides when he sees the tense line of Donghyuck’s back. He’s clenching his muscles, like an animal caught in a trap, ready to dash, looking for escape routes. There are many, in this room, and none of them would work because there aren’t any escape routes in life. Even this, what Mark is going to do – what Mark is not going to do – is not to give Donghyuck an escape route. Mark is not kind like that. He grew up to be a conqueror, he grew up to be a king. (So did his husband.)

Donghyuck doesn’t even try to escape, Mark has to give him that. He’s too proud for games, he’s made of gold and light and glory and glory doesn’t show its retreating back. Mark can smell fear on him, but Donghyuck wears it like a bridal veil, he shrouds himself in it as he walks towards the bed and sits down on it, then looks up, in Mark’s eyes. Mark can still smell the fear but Donghyuck only shows him determination and defiance.

Neither of them says a word as Donghyuck rids himself of the tunic, tearing it to pieces when he gets stuck in the golden chain.

Mark wants to look away, but he can’t. There’s so much to look at, so much he could mouth at. Donghyuck’s collarbones, his neck, framed by the golden links of the chain – Donghyuck is not allowed to remove it until the night is over, but Mark wants it gone, he wants to rip it away with his teeth – and the curve of his hips, all silky, tanned skin.

“Aren’t you going to come over?” Donghyuck beckons. “To take what is yours, Your Highness?”

It always feels like an insult when he says it, but Mark is glad his husband doesn’t call him by name. He would probably like it, and that would be a mistake.

There are people standing outside the door, six trained guards and the chambermaids and the priestess, listening, waiting, but Donghyuck doesn’t shake and doesn’t shiver as he spreads his legs. He blushes, in anger or shame. He bites his bottom lip.

“Should I lie on my stomach? Would it make it easier for you?”

“No,” Mark says, too fast and too dry.

Donghyuck’s eyebrows shoot upwards. He lets himself fall back, in the middle of the big bed, arching his neck so he can keep looking at Mark. His sex is limp between his legs and Mark’s – Mark’s is not, not at all, it's straining and screaming at him to just go there and let centuries of instinct take over, but there are ten people outside the door waiting to hear them fuck and Donghyuck hates him.

“You think you can get it up while having to look at my face? I’m not my sister.”

Mark laughs hysterically inside his head. Donghyuck’s face is the last of his problems. He does want to come on his face, on his arrogant little pout, those heart-shaped lips. He wants to bite them until they bleed and he wants to tease Donghyuck until he cries, until his voice is dry and broken and raspy, until he can only shake in muted gasps, breathless and undone.

It would be really easy, because that’s what Donghyuck wants. He’s been glaring at Mark, riling him up, mocking him under his breath for the whole night. He wanted Mark angry, he wanted him furious, he wanted their first time to be merciless and rough and vicious, and he wanted to feel it in his body for days, each day reminding him of what Mark did to him. He wanted Mark to lose control and to be the evil one, because that will make it easier for him to hate Mark.

Mark only looks at him, sees the nervousness and impatience trickling down Donghyuck’s armor of boldness, his fingers imperceptibly digging harder on the skin of his thighs to keep himself from closing his legs, hiding from Mark’s gaze.

“Are you going to do it? We don’t have the whole night.”

“Oh, we do,” Mark says, very low. He takes a step closer, watches Donghyuck’s eyes harden, his whole body tensing as he stops breathing and… “But I can’t do it. I won’t do it.”

He watches the fury clear in Donghyuck’s eyes just for a moment, knowing it will burn even brighter later.

“What do you mean you won’t?”

“I mean I won’t have sex with you, not if you keep acting like it’s the worst punishment in the world. Cover yourself, I don’t want to see you.”

It comes out harsher then he meant it and he doesn’t regret it one bit, not for the way it shatters Donghyuck’s composure, lights him up like a summer bonfire.

“Are you crazy?” Donghyuck says in a whispers, eyes blazing, face twisted in such an outraged expression Mark would find it funny, if his husband wasn’t looking positively murderous. “There are people behind that door, waiting for us to consummate this marriage!”

“Let them wait for the whole night then, I will bite you and then I’m going to sleep.”

Donghyuck jumps off the bed, all golden glitter and naked skin, too much skin. “You can’t just…”, he starts saying, trying to shove Mark, but Mark catches his wrists before Donghyuck hits him in the chest.

“No, the thing I cannot do now is fuck you,” he says, very low, and if Donghyuck wasn’t so furious he would maybe realize Mark is doing for him, for his honor, because he doesn’t want the people outside to know how harshly he’s rejecting Donghyuck. This is a rejection, and it is harsh, and it is worth it, the humiliation on Donghyuck’s face, after all the times he humiliated Mark. It is worth it. “I can’t and I won’t sleep with an unwilling partner.”

“I am willing to do my duty,” Donghyuck hisses, trying to break free from Mark’s hold, but Mark squeezes him tighter, leans down to whisper in Donghyuck’s ear, his nose brushing against copper curls.

“But I don’t want duty. The day I get to fuck you, it won’t be for duty.”

“Never.”

Donghyuck yanks himself back and this time Mark is not fast enough to stop him. Donghyuck's fist collides with his face, strong enough to make him stagger, maybe to bruise, but not to break skin. A relief, because that would've been awkward to explain tomorrow morning. Still, it hurts when Mark brings a hand up to his cheek to inspect the damage. He winces at the sudden sting. Never, Donghyuck says. Oh, never would be nice, but neither of them can afford it. Mark needs a royal heir and Donghyuck… Donghyuck will need Mark once his heat comes, and Mark will not be so cruel as to refuse him. Tonight, though, tonight he wants to be cruel.

“It shall be as you wish, darling,” he repeats, the same words he said during the feast, and finally something akin to hurt shows up on Donghyuck’s face. So he can be hurt. He can bleed and he can cry – he’s so close to crying now, and Mark was the one who did it. What a fucking useless achievement.

“I still need to mark you,” Mark says, when Donghyuck grabs the sheet to cover himself. He can get away with not fucking Donghyuck tonight – people will talk, but he can make them shut up – but they need to come out of this room as mates. It will hurt, since they have not had sex before the bite. Mark wishes Donghyuck had accepted the flower wine. He regrets not drinking more himself when Donghyuck tilts his head on the side, exposing the elegant curve of his neck, the constellations of moles dotting his skin, his sweet, summery scent making Mark’s mouth water.

Mark closes his eyes, breathes him in. The hatred, the humiliation, the anger. The fear. Underneath everything else, Donghyuck still smells like something Mark should never be allowed to touch, like gold and glory. His skin tastes like ruin, sweet, exquisite ruin.

Mark bites down and, just like he had predicted, just like Donghyuck wanted, it hurts.


	2. ii. i am weary of all your words and soft, strange ways

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, I wasn't expecting all the support I received for this fic and I want to thank all of you ;; I will try to answer comments after I send this update.  
> I want to leave a little warning. don't forget this fic is tagged as slow burn, which means the character development will be slow. which means you'll have to deal with a frustrating amount of them being obnoxious and that it's probably going to take a while for them to feel comfortable with each other and spar together and hunt together and inaugurate schools together and talk about the economy of the kingdom and all the domestic things royal couples do. just putting this out there in case someone is hoping this fic is going to solve itself easily. things are going to get better in the next chapter (marginally better) but they won't be solved easily.  
> this said, thank you again for your lovely comments. I hope you enjoy this chapter too (it only took one week? idk who I am anymore) and I'm always free to answer doubts about the plot or questions about the verse or just to brush your hair out of your face when you cry about how stupid they both are. also (spoiler!) the rating is going to go up in the next chapter, ig.  
> ♥  
>   
> \- chapter title comes from Sappho, "Fragments 48" translated by Charles Algernon Swinburne

Donghyuck is good at the whole consort thing, better than Mark expected him to be. He looks regal and unattainable at his husband’s side in front of the lords of the kingdom and warm and familiar in front of the crowd, waving prettily at children and bowing at old people and smiling wide and smug every time a girl screams his name.

“You should be happy,” the queen says to Mark when she sees him frown. “Our people love him.”

They have every reason to. Donghyuck rides to town every fortnight, to visits the charity hospices and the schools of the temple, where the poorest children of the city learn to write and count. He hands out bread and sits girls with dirty knees on his lap and he he holds their hands, and he braids their hair, and he sings them songs.

“He has an amazing voice,” Jungwoo says with a soft smile, helm in his hand and silvery armor shining faintly at the light of the candles while its owner tells Mark all the amazing things his amazing consort has done today.

Yukhei, at Mark’s back, scoffs. “You sound smitten.”

“Everyone is smitten,” Jungwoo replies with a shrug. “The Prince Consort is lovely.”

No one asked you, thinks Mark. He stares at the piece of parchment in front of him, almost expecting Jungwoo to have put it on paper as well, next to the report of the day. _Took_ _the Prince Consort to town, he was lovely._ Of course Jungwoo didn’t - Jungwoo wouldn’t. The words run frantically under Mark’s tired eyes, like little busy ants. He squints to chase them away.

“You wouldn’t think him so lovely if you had met him when he was younger,” says Yukhei, and Mark has half a mind to scold him, to scold them both. They’re knights, for the Goddess’ sake, not gossiping maidens.

“He was a menace,” Yukhei continues. “He would chase Mark around with a wooden sword, challenging him to a duel. Imagine having to protect the prince from this tiny, murderous kid, knowing you couldn’t touch him because he was also a prince.”

“Did the prince ever accept?” Jungwoo asks, and Mark closes his eyes and wishes he didn’t have ears to hear Yukhei’s laugh.

“Oh, you know Mark. Too fucking proud to refuse the challenge, even if the Prince Consort handed out his ass to him every fucking time.”

It’s time to stage an intervention, Mark realizes. He knows Yukhei is in a mood for humiliating him and it’s better to stop him before he starts retelling the tree house incident.

“Thank you Yukhei, I don’t know how I would survive without you recounting the most embarrassing moment of my life in front of every single one of the knights sworn to protect me.”

Yukhei chuckles at that, eyes shining with amusement, and Mark knows, he already knows what he’s going to say. “Remember the tree house incident, Your Highness? That was a day.”

Mark groans. Of course he remembers, how could he ever forget. Of all his past encounters with young Donghyuck, the tree house incident is the one Mark hates the most. Not because he ended up breaking a leg and being scolded by his whole family when Donghyuck finally found a way to tear down the tree house and almost killed the three of them in the process, but because it was Mark’s fault. No matter how annoying, petty and childish Donghyuck was, not letting him play with Mark and Yukhei when he was a guest, when he was alone in a foreign kingdom - his sister confined to bed by a sudden cold and Jeno left behind in the islands - was really mean. Donghyuck was already hard to bear before that, but after that summer he became impossible, the bane of Mark’s existence.

(He still is, in a way. In a sharp, dazzling way. Donghyuck is not a rose, pretty and delicate, he doesn’t have thorns that make you bleed when you try to touch him. Donghyuck is a naked blade without a hilt, it’ll slash your hand when you wield it, your blood for the blood of your enemies, a hungry, glorious, a beautiful blade, the only one that can lead you to victory.)

Pain flares in Mark’s head, the consequences of being away from his mate for the whole day. He dismisses Jungwoo and lays his head down on the table, trying to ignore the migraine pounding against his temples.

“Stop dissing me in front of the Royal Guard,” he murmurs. “They already like Hyuck more than they like me.”

Yukhei sits next to him and fills his goblet with lemon liquor, pungent and fragrant, from the Southern Islands. He wonders if Donghyuck would like a sip or if he would take it as an insult, like everything Mark usually does when it concerns him.

“They wonder, you know? Why you haven’t bedded him yet. It’s been two weeks and everyone is wondering. The excuse of you two being unfamiliar with each other is going to grow old fast.”

“But we are unfamiliar with each other.”

“Mark…” Yukhei shakes his head, takes a sip of the liquor and doesn’t say anything. Mark doesn’t need him to say anything, but he doesn’t have any answers for Yukhei’s silent questions.

What could he say, after all? He is the one who’s refusing to do his job. Donghyuck would be willing, reluctant but willing, recalcitrant but willing. Unwilling but willing, in a way that makes Mark mad. And Mark is, well, more than willing. He’s a young Alpha and he’s mated, and the Bond calls to him like a siren’s song in Donghyuck’s sticky, honey voice. Mark hears it in his dreams, Donghyuck, calling him Your Highness - not Mark, never Mark, he doesn’t know how Donghyuck would soung calling him by his first name, or even worse, by his birth name, Minhyung, and he’s afraid of the day he finds out because he’s sure he’ll never be able to get it out of his mind.

But Donghyuck doesn’t call his name and Mark avoids their bedchamber when he can and sometimes even when he can’t, and his head hurts, and now people are whispering and wondering why the royal couple is not close. _Why don’t you like him, Your Highness? He’s so lovely._

Mark doesn’t need people to tell him Donghyuck is lovely, because he can see it by himself. He hears him laugh when he talks to Sungmin and to the queen at breakfast, he sees him smile to the servants around the palace and the guards at the gate and he hears him sing to the flowers in the garden, right outside Mark’s personal library. The whole room lights up when he does it.

Donghyuck was a beloved Crown Prince, down in the Southern Islands, kind and humble, unrivalled in archery and good enough at jousting to look stunning even when he lost, though Mark has never had the honor to see him in his golden armor (and he never will, because a Prince Consort is not allowed to joust. Ever.) He will be a beloved Prince Consort here in the Vale of the Giants, because he’s smart and he knows how to make people love him - or maybe he doesn’t, maybe it’s just so easy to love him that he doesn’t need to do anything.

And yet, it’s so difficult for Mark to love him. Donghyuck doesn’t smile at him, he doesn’t laugh, he never sings when he thinks Mark might be listening. Donghyuck looks pretty, in a tragic, defiant way. Donghyuck smells like ruin, like his own ruin, because the day Mark gets to put his hand on him he’ll have to ruin him for any other man, to make up for all the distance he keeps putting between him and Mark.

Donghyuck is feigning sleep by the time Mark joins him for the night, and Mark is just as happy to pretend he can’t hear him fidget before he succumbs to a wicked, thick summer dream.

 

❃

 

The birds are chirping and the air is fresh and heavy with unspilled rain and fragrant with the smell of new grass and wet hearth. It is late morning. Lord Kim from the Kim-Min clan has been talking for the best part of the last hour, something about the increase of pests in his family orchard and the consequent damage for the local economy, Mark has stopped listening to him at least two bells ago.

There’s an art to this kind of councils, Sungmin taught Mark, when their father started delegating the weekly audiences with the lords to the both of them, choosing to only attend the weekly Assembly. Mark doesn't blame him. People talk, and talk, and talk for hours, they would talk for entire days if you let them, because it makes them feel important to know that the king and the princes and the entire royal family have to listen to them until they’re done. The thing is, the royal family only has to listen, they don’t have to comply to the requests of the lords, so the lords have learnt to hide their intentions behind long, convoluted speeches and polite smiles and fake compliments. Mark is sure the talk about the dying orchard is just the prelude to a demand, probably money, with the excuse of keeping people well fed the coming winter.

“After all, if our orchard doesn’t produce anything, what will your people eat, Your Highness?”

Oh, there it is. The request. Our orchard. But it’s your people. Mark’s people, because he’s the future king.

“Isn’t it also your people, Lord Kim?”

Mark doesn’t turn towards the door like everyone else in the room, to stare at the Prince Consort. Mark felt him coming, every step that closed the distance between them echoing in his chest, pounding in his veins, itching in the scar on his shoulder, there where Donghyuck bit down at the beginning - at the end - of their foolish wedding night. He wonders, sometimes, if Donghyuck feels it too, the Bond, the way it stretches when they stay away for too long, closing around their necks, the red thread of destiny becoming a noose, tighter and tighter, until it’s difficult to breathe and the only relief is to be found in the awkward silence of their shared rooms. Angry and tight and tense and uncomfortable, but together.

Mark doesn’t need to turn, because he always knows where Donghyuck is. He could close his eyes and feel him in the stables and in the gardens and in the library, and in his room, drawing a scented bath, his skin shiny and red and soft from the hot water. (Mark stays away for hours, when it happens.) He knows it’s Donghyuck and he knows Donghyuck is wearing green and he knows it looks amazing on him, and he would pluck the eyes out of all the people in the room because they know it too.

Lord Kim splutters, murmurs a greeting for the Prince Consort, doesn’t answer the question. A pity, because it was a good question. Mark would have liked to hear the answer.

“Your orchard is famous, my Lord,” Donghyuck continues. He’s still lingering at the door, not quite inside but not outside either, and that’s when Mark realizes it’s because there’s no seat prepared for him in the Council Room. There are some free benches at the opposite end of the oval room, where minor lords sit as they wait for their chance to talk, but making a Prince Consort sit there would be an insult to his position. Donghyuck’s seat should always be next to Mark’s, but there’s no etiquette when it comes to royal consorts participating to the Council, so no one ever thought of preparing a seat for him there.

Mark tries to get up, to leave him his seat, but Donghyuck walks behind him and plants his short, carefully trimmed nails on his shoulder, pushing him down again.

“You produce apples, don’t you?” he says, still talking to Lord Kim. “The best apples of the Vale, I’ve heard.”

The tone is conversational, almost curious. Perfectly polite. From the corner of his eyes, Mark can see Donghyuck’s eyes sparkle. When he was a child and he challenged Mark to a duel, when he was still so much better than Mark with a sword, this was the look he would have while he was playing with him like a cat with an unfortunate mouse.

“Have you ever tried them, Your Grace?” Lord Kim asks, and Donghyuck rewards him with a gracious smile, true to his title.

“We had them sometimes, at my father’s table. Not often, for they were quite expensive.”

“They truly are. They are the color of gold, the prettiest apples of the entire Vale, so we sell them at quite a high price, Your Grace.”

The Lord bows and Donghyuck bows back and Mark sees Sungmin hide a smirk behind his sleeve before he starts addressing Lord Kim’s request.

“If your golden apples are so expensive, Lord Kim, I doubt the loss of them would affect the population of your domains, since they wouldn’t be able to afford them anyway.” Lord Kim’s smile freezes on his face, the pride turning something saccharine and spoiled. He opens his mouth to protest but Sungmin beats him to it. “Nevertheless, I will send an envoy to confirm the status of the infestation of your orchard and check if it’s spreading to other fields as well. The meeting is adjourned.”

The room explodes in an indistinct chattering of dragged chairs, small talk and complaints from who didn’t have the chance to talk and who had it and wasted it. Mark doesn’t hear anything, the entire world reduced to the pressure of Donghyuck’s hands on his shoulders, Donghyuck’s warmth seeping through the fabric and the skin and the bone, reaching his marrow, setting it on fire. Donghyuck’s scent is cloying, sweet, spiked with a deep note of lavender, Donghyuck’s favorite scented salt. He’s smiling at Sungmin, bowing at the lords whenever they meet his eyes, and Mark wonders how many of them understood what just happened. Sungmin might be the one who rejected Lord Kim’s request, but Donghyuck laid out the foundation for it. A clever prince, indeed.

“You could have warned me you were going to come, I would have prepared a seat for you in the Council,” Mark says, low, only for Donghyuck to hear. The room is empty now, and Mark wonders when it happened, he wonders if everyone else smelled the air and decided to let the royal couple alone - to abandon Mark to his own demise. Even Yukhei seems to have slinked away, and when Donghyuck talks his voice is as low as Mark’s, but perfectly clear in the silence of the room.

“A seat next to yours, I guess.”

A seat wherever you fucking want to seat, thinks Mark, but he doesn’t say it. He’s trying. One of them needs to try, at least.

“Well, that’s where you are expected to seat.”

He doesn’t mean it in a demeaning way, but when Donghyuck is in the room the only people of a higher status than him would be in order Mark, the queen consort and the king, so it would only make sense for him to sit right next to his husband rather than his in-laws. Donghyuck being Donghyuck, he takes it in a demeaning way, and Mark feels the pressure grow heavy on his back, Donghyuck’s nails sinking in the meat of his shoulders through the fabric.

“I’d rather stand, thank you.”

Stupid, stupid boy. Donghyuck is good as so many things, too many things, and yet he’s never learnt when to back off. Mark never learnt it either. They’re the same, the both of them, they’ve never been taught retreat as a strategy, and when you charge head on only the strongest can stand victorious. In moments like these, Mark wants nothing more than to see Donghyuck on the ground.

“Courteous, humble, polite, passably pretty, an amazing archer, a more than decent swordsman and now a politician. Is there anything you can’t do? Other than being a decent person to me?”

“Oh, you’re the one to talk Your Highness.”

And Donghyuck leans down, his lips brushing against Mark’s jaw in a way that makes sparkles dance under his skin, tumbling down his chest, ricocheting from his stomach to his gut, and Mark thinks he must be made of paper inside, because that’s all it takes, Donghyuck’s skin against his in a way that is supposed to be soft but creates more sparkles than a clash, to set him on fire.

“Once I’ve heard my cousin say that Alphas are only good for one thing. It’s a pity it seems to be the only thing you can’t do.”

 

❃

 

A prince needs to be patient, Mark’s mother used to say to him when he was a short-tempered, spoiled child, prone to throw a tantrum and stomp his feet on the ground when things didn’t go his way. When you’re angry, before you do anything else, you have to count to ten. Count to ten and think about the consequences of your actions. If you’re too angry to think rationally, count to ten and then count to one hundred, to one thousand, until you’re calm enough to take a lucid decision, and then, only then, you act. Do you understand, Minhyung?

But what if, Mark wants to ask his mother, what if you’re too angry to even hear your own voice inside your head? What if it’s Donghyuck’s voice you’re hearing, and it’s leering and mocking and if he wasn’t your husband you would be challenging him to defend your honor, not with wooden swords like he did when you were children, but with steel and sweat and blood? (With hands on his hips, to pin him down, to bruise him, to brand him like you would do to a runaway horse, and with your mouth on his throat, sharper than a blade and equally able to draw blood.)

Mark tries to count to ten. He gets to six before he’s standing up and dashing through the door Donghyuck just left from - his mind storming, hands tightening into fists the same way they would close around the hilt of his sword in battle.

Light assaults Mark’s eyes as soon as he opens the door, white and blinding light, the kind that makes specks of dust shine like golden powder suspended mid-air, floating out of time. The curtains are open, tied with velvet ribbons at the sides of the countless windows that decorate the left wall of the corridor, and sunshine cascades through the tempered glass, sliding down the opposite wall like a casting of incandescent, impalpable lava, pooling on the floor like a sea of blinding light.

Mark squints, focusing on the green of Donghyuck’s blouse, and starts walking faster, hoping to catch his husband before he can reach the door and walk into the hall, where too many people would listen to their conversation. (And no one else needs to hear what Mark wants to tell Donghyuck right now.).

The mullions of the windows cast long, sharp lines of darkness on his face, framing all the light flooding the corridor in big, stern squares that chase each other on his face as he moves. Only Donghyuck looks like he’s standing in a vortex of white, untouched by the shadows, and Mark wants to pull him out of all that beauty, so that’s what he does when he finally reaches him.

He pulls on Donghyuck’s blouse, yanks him back before he can run away. Donghyuck’s eyes thunder, but he’s still too surprised to even yelp when Mark pins him against the flowery wallpaper, between the portrait of a princess born two centuries ago and a tapestry of doves flying together against the dawning sky.

“What is your problem?” Mark asks, almost growls, crowding closer at the same time, restraining Donghyuck with his whole body to prevent the other boy from fighting back.

And Donghyuck does fight back. They’re almost the same height, but Mark has the advantage of having Donghyuck right where he wanted him, already restrained, one leg wedged between Donghyuck’s thighs to keep him on his toes break his balance, Donghyuck’s hands trapped against the wall before he can punch Mark like he did during their wedding night. (Mark thought he had him under control, that day, and he got a punch to his face. He’s not going to make the same mistake again.)

“What is _your_ problem?” spits back Donghyuck, after two useless attempts at yanking his hands away from Mark’s grip. “Let me go! Immediately!”

His eyes go to the closed door, only a few steps away, and Mark doesn’t know if it’s because he’s hoping for someone to come and interrupt them or because he’s afraid someone will have to find them like this if he screams.

“I will when you tell me why exactly you are being so impossible to me. What did I even do to you?”

Donghyuck temporarily gives up the fight to laugh bitterly in Mark’s face. Half his face is in the shadows right now, but sunshine pools on the curve of his lips, luring Mark's attention when he opens them to talk.

“You think we have enough time to cover that? Well, think again.”

A brat. Mark is married to a brat. And he’s even more of a brat, because he slams Donghyuck back against the wall with his weight. He would feel like a bully for doing that to literally anyone else, but Donghyuck fights back so violently after that, so viciously and wildly, thrashing once again in Mark’s hold and trying to knee him in the balls, that Mark doesn’t feel a single lick of regret for manhandling him.

“People are starting to murmur,” he whispers instead, his hold tightening on Donghyuck’s wrists.

“And whose fault is that? I’m not the one who’s refusing to do my duty, you are. I’m starting to think there’s something wrong with you down there, Your Highness.”

This is the closest they’ve been since their wedding night. Scratch that, this is the closest they’ve been their whole life, and Mark is hard, he’s been hard since Donghyuck whispered his poisonous, sweet words in his ears, moments ago, and for a moment he considers letting Donghyuck feel that, judge by himself if there’s something wrong with Mark down there. Let him gag for something Mark doesn’t want to give him, not if he keeps being such a brat, let Mark get some friction and enough wank material to last until Donghyuck’s heat arrives, at least. But this is also the most they’ve talked since their wedding night and Yukhei is right, he needs to talk to his husband. They need to make this work.

“And what did you want me to do?” he says. “You looked like you were ready to faint! Should I have taken you like that? So that you could hate all of it?”

“And what if I hate all of it? It’s still my duty, our duty, and I’m still going to carry it out because I know what’s at stake, unlike you!”

Donghyuck’s eyes are shining, his chest heaving as he struggles to let the words out despite being out of breath, his mouth spit-slick and bitten-pink and not fast enough for all the mean things he wants to say to Mark. He looks beautiful, fuck, he really looks beautiful. In a way that makes Mark feel like he should be out there, smiling to someone he likes, not trapped here with Mark. He would look so much prettier, if he smiled. He would be lovely.

“But I don’t want you to hate it,” Mark says, so exasperated and angry. He regrets it immediately - it’s too close to a confession, to a weakness that Donghyuck could use against him, and he shouldn’t have said it - but the words are already tumbling down, like a ravine of mistakes, like a rainshower of stones, and they hurt, and Mark can do nothing to stop them. “Is it that hard for you to believe that I don’t want you to hate me?”

Donghyuck freezes, and Mark hopes, really hopes, that this time he got it. It’s not much, but this is what he can offer. As small as it is, it is a peace offering.

But then Donghyuck smiles, and it’s the same smile he smiled to Lord Kim a little earlier, the smile he smiled when he was young and he decided it was time to stop playing with Mark and beat him into the dirt. It’s that smile, just a little glassy and vulnerable and hurt.

“Oh, it’s not hard. You’ve already told me how you want me, after all. What was it? Pliant and quiet?”

Mistakes, tumbling down like stones. Donghyuck does knee him in the dick this time, and then he storms away, and Mark’s biggest regret isn’t having said those stupid, stupid words during their wedding banquet, or those even more stupid words during their wedding night. Mark’s biggest mistake was not rubbing one on Donghyuck today that he could, because now he’s sure Donghyuck will never, ever let him get close enough to do anything remotely sexual in the future. Fuck him, really. Mark definitely should.


	3. iii. neither for me honey nor the honey bee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I guess we're finally here. Rating might change for the next chapter, and so will the tags. Please read carefully and make sure you know what you're getting into ;A; Also you might notice that this chapter is shorter than usual. It's because I wanted to separate this scene physically from the next one, next chapter will be longer again.
> 
> This chapter is for Ceren, who's been with me for five or six years and I hope will still be there in five or six years. Happy (belated) birthday, I know you will enjoy the gift ♥
> 
> (also let me thank you all for the amazing comments, I always read them and I usually reply them one by one before I update, but it's 6.30AM here and I want to update so I can go to sleep ;; I will reply the comments tomorrow, but thank you so much for every single word, you have no idea how good they are for my motivation to go on ;;;; ilu all, enjoy!)
> 
> \- chapter title comes from Sappho, "Fragment 107", translated by Anne Carson

Mark’s father is bent over a map of the borders, his voice nothing more than a low murmur meant only for General Hwang’s ears, when Mark enters the room. There’s no herald announcing the Crown Prince, not in the king’s personal rooms. Mark’s arrival is betrayed only by the soft click of the door. Both men look up for a moment, clearly annoyed at the interruption. General Hwang nods and looks down towards the map again, while the king lets out a brisk, “Not now, Mark,” that has Mark realizing that this might not be the best moment to ask for fatherly advice. Except it’s late, too late, and Mark is too wary of coming back to his own rooms – to his and Donghyuck’s room – because if he waits now tomorrow the king might not have a heir to give advices to anymore.

“What do you do when the queen is cross with you?” Mark asks, the words precipitating out of his mouth in a rumpled, disheveled way, like they’re all racing to see which one will leave his lips first.

The king looks up again, General Hwang too, and Mark can feel himself grow red under their inquisitive gazes, until General Hwang scoffs and exchanges an amused, defeated glance with the king. Mark can almost hear him say, _he’s all yours_ , before he turns around to leave, patting Mark’s shoulder when he brushes against him.

That leaves Mark alone with his father, who sighs and crashes on the armchair in front of the table, unpinning the map from the table and letting it pop back into a roll of parchment.

“Troubles at the border?” Mark asks, trying to break the tension.

“When are we not having trouble at the borders? There’s a band of misfits raiding the villages around the mountains. They might be traitors who ran away from the empire… Rumors said Lord Xu’s third son is among them, which means the empire might ask for permission to send their troops into our borders to deal with them.”

“And we don’t want that to happen,” concludes Mark for him. “What about the prince? The one who’s staying here? Did he say anything about it?”

The king rubs the skin between his eyebrows. “He’s a kid your age Mark, I don’t want to play guessing games with him. You should talk to him. Or,” – his gaze grows sharper – “you could ask your husband to do it, if you were on talking terms with him…”

Oh, the disappointment in the king’s voice is palpable, in a way that would make Mark flinch back if this whole mess was entirely his fault. But it isn’t. It really isn’t.

The thing is, Mark was never a problematic son, or a bad prince. When he was just his mother’s baby boy, when his name was still Minhyung, he was a polite, quiet child who loved reading and playing with his brother’s harp and climbing trees and eating watermelon in summer in the garden.

When the king told him, a lean, awkward, soft little prince, that he needed to become a warrior, to lead his brother’s armies – their kingdom’s armies – that he needed to do his duty as the second prince, Minhyung stopped playing and started training. He trained every day, almost religiously, until his palms were scrubbed raw and his legs and arms and back were covered in bruises, until the ache in his limbs started to settle. He swallowed the fatigue and practiced against Zhoumi, against General Hwang and General Kim, against Sehun and Hansol and Youngho and every single knight in the Royal Guard who was willing to teach the young prince a lesson, he practiced until the sword became an extension of his hands and the sweat stopped stinging in his eyes and the only thing he could taste was the dirt of the training barracks scratching at the back of his throat.

And then Sungmin presented as a beta, and the king sighed and sat down on his throne and summoned Minhyung to his rooms that night. He looked at the way his son’s shoulders filled the training gear, his fingers looking for the weight of the words at his side, his quick gaze scanning the room to look for potential threats and he said, “I want you to take my place in the Wide Council. Help your brother keep the lords in check. It’s time for you to learn what is like to rule a country. Will you do it?”

And Minhyung did, because his father asked him to, because he was a prince – not the Crown Prince yet, but he could be, he could very well become it and everyone needed him to be ready, if he was going to present as an Alpha. No one asked him if he was ready, if he was willing, if he was even able to do what his father was asking from him. He wasn’t, so he studied harder. He learnt the names of all the lords and history of their clan and their allegiances and all the times their family betrayed his own and why they were still around despite stabbing the royal family in the back multiple times. He learned, the best he could, that compromise is the foundation of rule, and he did not like it but he accepted it, because that’s what a prince does. He studied the way a kingdom worked, like a body, with hands willing to hold a sword and hands willing to hold a shovel and hands willing to hold a pen and a musical instrument and a flower and hands willing to hold someone else’s hands. A body with streets that work like veins and with wounds that suppurate with malcontent and fear, and with a hungry stomach that digest everything and always asks for more, and with a heart, and with a head, and with a question, which of the two is prince Minhyung going to be? And then Minhyung presented as an Alpha. He became Mark and he didn’t have to choose, not anymore. He lost the privilege to choose because a Crown Prince has to be both, the heart and the head, and the shield and the sword and the gut of his country, and sometimes even something more.

Minhyung had led the second attack against the pirates in the naval battle of Cape Conk when he was only fifteen and fought at the border for months when he was sixteen and at seventeen he had kissed his betrothed in his room because that’s what everyone expected from him, that’s what everyone needed from him, to secure this girl’s affection, to secure her country’s money against the Northern armies threatening to fall upon the Vale like a snowslide, an avalanche of soldiers and steel and blood coming from the mountains, leaving only the desert behind them. Mark married at nineteen to save his country, because he was the Crown Prince and it was his duty, enough duty to last for a lifetime. The duty to fuck his husband, to breed him, to seal the alliance of their countries with a mating bite and a couple of babies. (Something a Crown Prince has to be nothing more than that, a glorified breeding stallion.)

The thing is, Mark was a good child, a good son, a good prince, a good Crown Prince even, always been, and it makes him so mad that not being a good husband is enough to cast a shadow over everything he’s done up until now. He’s trying to be a good husband, but Donghyuck is so damn difficult.

“So you heard?” he asks, voice low, almost ashamed. His father looks up, his face stern and unforgiving. He’s never had to forgive Mark for anything, so of course he wouldn’t know how to do it now.

“I think there’s no one who hasn’t heard about it from the Southern Island to the capital of the Empire, my son.”

“Fascinating, how fast bad news can travel.”

The thing is, the times Mark disappointed his father can be counted on the fingers of one hand maybe, and they’re all related to Donghyuck. There was the tree house incident, and the tournament at Sunshield, in the islands, where neither Mark nor Donghyuck could compete in the end. The king was furious, but that time Donghyuck fully deserved it so Mark never brought himself to feel any guilt. When Donghyuck came with his sister for the official betrothal, two years ago, the last time they met. (And Mark still fails to realize what exactly made Donghyuck so angry that time.) And then now. Now might be the worse of them all.

Mark opens his mouth – to justify himself, to explain that it’s not his fault, it’s Donghyuck, Donghyuck with his honey skin and soft hair shining pink gold in the afternoon light, Donghyuck and his mean words and his nervous hands and the way he sometimes seems to shrink under Mark’s gaze, only to realize what he’s doing and immediately straightening his shoulder before he sends Mark a heated glance, one that screams challenge and contempt and pride at the same time. Mark opens his mouth, but his father doesn’t let him talk.

“Just apologize to him. Omegas like that.”

Mark scoffs inwardly at that.

“What if he was the one doing something wrong?” He asks. “What if he’s just overreacting and I have literally nothing to apologize for, what if?”

“Then you should apologize anyway. I don’t care who’s right and who’s wrong Mark, no one cares. You will apologize if that’s what you need to do to get between that boy’s legs. We need a heir and we need it soon.”

Mark feels the _no_ shiver through his whole body, the same way he had felt it with Donghyuck during their wedding night, ten people outside their room to hear them fuck for the first time. The mere thought makes him sick.

“What if he doesn’t accept my apology?” he asks. What if it makes him more angry? It’s Donghyuck and that’s how he works, fueled by anger and despise, sometimes Mark is afraid he might drop dead without all that scalding hot fury blasting in his veins.

The king sighs. “He’s just an Omega. Grovel a little, if you can. They seem to like that.”

Oh, but Donghyuck is not just an Omega. Mark is sure that if he were to bow in front of Donghyuck, to grovel, like his father put it, the first thing the other boy would do at the sight of his exposed neck would be to run a sword through it. Donghyuck doesn’t want to be bribed with sweet words, a pacifier in form of fake apologies, a bone thrown to an unruly dog, to keep him quiet and pliant – and oh, does Mark feel shame whenever he remembers those words, the way he said them, the way Donghyuck threw them back at him. Donghyuck doesn’t want an armistice, that much Mark knows. He’s come to understand it, slowly, in bits and pieces. His husband will not settle for a compromise. He wants a headcrash on a pitched battle, one that he can only win or lose, and then, only then, in face of a crushing defeat, he will submit. (Or rule.)

Mark can read it in his eyes, that night, as he comes to their bedroom like a general leading his troops to war only to find Donghyuck’s army already in place.

(It’s in his messy hair, soft, silky threads spread on the pillow like a silver halo, shining faintly under the moonlight. It’s in his naked collarbones, in the way the robe has slid down to reveal the silky golden skin of his chest and the claim Mark has bitten deep and hard in the delicate curve between his neck and his shoulder. It’s in the way he’s waiting – and who knows for how long he’s been waiting – spread on the bed, warm and wet, two fingers inside himself as he sighs, quietly, when Mark steps inside the room, his scent blooming in the air, thick and sticky, like honey and wildflowers.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (yes next chapter will have smut. pray for my soul.)


	4. iv. he didn’t call me beautiful first he called me exquisite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am way too nervous for this and idek why since I've already posted markhyuck smut and I posted a whole lot of smut for other ships in my dumb writer life but STILL I am nervous. Hope you like it, that's it ;;  
> Also if you think I should bump the rating up to M let me know, I don't think this is graphic enough but I also think it's graphic enough so idk.  
> EDIT: nevermind I changed the rating to Explicit in the end.
> 
> (also I'm gonna reply all the comments /right now/ sorry if I was so late but it was either writing or replying and I wrote, like a fool, but thank you so much, I'm immensely grateful for the support, you're the best ;;)
> 
> \- [chapter title inspiration](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7473220-he-placed-his-hands-on-my-mind-before-reaching-for)

“Is this the game we’re going to play?”

Donghyuck’s eyes shoot open when he hears Mark’s voice, and Mark can see the way his thighs spasm, his whole body clamping down on his fingers in surprise. He doesn’t hear the sigh trapped in Donghyuck’s throat, but he sees his chest heave, flushed, and his cock twitch against his stomach, and Donghyuck’s eyes flutter shut for a moment as he bites his lips, breathes through his nose, slowly, once, twice. The room is hazy with his scent, or maybe it’s Mark’s mind that’s hazy. Donghyuck is the only thing he can see clearly.

Donghyuck’s eyes flutter open again and he immediately look for Mark’s, and Mark doesn’t know if it’s a plea or a challenge, but Donghyuck drives his fingers inside again without breaking eye contact – maybe even a little deeper than before, just out of spite, and of course he’s not going to stop just because Mark arrived. He planned this, after all.

Is it really manipulation if you’re aware of it? If you willingly allow yourself to be walked into madness by a pair of round eyes and a whiff of pheromones that taste like ambrosia? Mark takes a moment to think about it as he locks the door before walking towards the edge of the bed. Donghyuck doesn’t stop moving his fingers when he feels the mattress dip under Mark’s weight, he doesn’t stop as Mark is bold enough to run a hand on his arm, warily, as if afraid Donghyuck could turn against him and bite it – but he wouldn’t, not now, when his teeth are too busy tugging on his bottom lip as he tries to restrain every sound, when his eyes are closed again, long lashes even longer in the shadows projected on his cheekbones by the light of the moon. Donghyuck only stops fingering himself when Mark’s hand circles his wrist, softly. His eyes are so big, pupils blown, and his skin is burning up. Mark’s gaze lingers on the curve of his bottom lip, slides down his neck to his chest – he can faintly make up Donghyuck’s nipples through the silk, and he wonders how it would be to touch them, but not now, not now.

Right now his hold on Donghyuck’s wrist tightens, enough to apply pressure but not enough that Donghyuck wouldn’t be able to break free, if he really wanted to. Right now, Mark leans down until he can smell the lavender oil on Donghyuck’s skin, overpowered by the cloying scent of his arousal.

“Is it your first time doing this?” he asks, and when Donghyuck opens his mouth to answer Mark forces his hand down, driving Donghyuck’s fingers deeper inside his ass and tearing a choked gasp out of him. “I would’ve smelled it, if you had done this before.”

Donghyuck shivers and Mark stills his hand again, lets him breathe. (Lets Donghyuck collect himself, so he can collect his own self as well.)

“What did you think I was doing, always taking all that time in the bathroom?” Donghyuck says, and it’s the first thing he’s said since Mark came into the room, so Mark takes a moment to appreciate the quality of his voice, how arousal makes it sound thicker than usual, not sharply sweet but dense, almost sirupy, like sugar melted on slow fire, slightly burnt at the bottom of the pan. Then, his brain suddenly registers the meaning of Donghyuck’s words.

“You were fingering yourself in the pool? All this time?”

He can’t help the spike in his own scent, the way blood fights to rush either to his face or his dick. Donghyuck feels it too, and his own scent surges in response, his body tensing in a way that has Mark wishing it was his own fingers inside him. (Or his dick, or his tongue, he’s not picky, he doubts Donghyuck would be either, not with how desperate he looks when he allows himself to look in Mark’s eyes.) But that would be too easy, Mark cannot afford to surrender himself like this, without a fight. This is not what he wants, this is not what Donghyuck wants. (Even if he says he does.)

“I do that, sometimes. A lot of times. My husband never touches me…” Donghyuck’s last words are lost as he harshly sucks in a breath when Mark palms his cock, squeezing it against his stomach, not enough friction to get him off, barely enough to make it jolt.

“You’re a brat, you know that?”

Donghyuck smirks, breathless and flushed and so damn smug.

“And you’re a dick,” he says, feeling so proud that even when they’re like this, even with Mark slowly driving his own fingers inside his ass, he can talk back. Omegas don’t talk back. Omegas don’t bare their teeth and hiss when their Alpha wraps a hand around their cock and pumps, once, twice, his thumb pressing under the head where all the nerves in your body seems to end when someone else is touching you. Donghyuck sighs, quiet, so quiet and so deep in his throat and so, so close. A pearl of precome oozes from his cock, shines shyly on his navel, right under the hem of his crumpled nightgown. Mark spreads it on the skin with his forefinger, his palm still pressing Donghyuck’s cock into his hip.

“But you want this dick,” he whispers, allowing Donghyuck to finger himself again, stilling the hand on his cock to focus on controlling the pace at which Donghyuck’s finger disappear into his ass. Donghyuck’s legs fall open and he shifts, probably trying to reach better, to find the angle he needs to get himself off, but the position is awkward and Mark doesn’t let him go deep enough to crook his fingers properly. Not yet. Donghyuck groans with the effort but still lets Mark lead him, doesn’t try to fight back. Mark wonders how much of this apparent docility is due to the pheromones hanging heavy in the air and how much is Donghyuck’s own frustration and desire to come. It must hurt, to be always so far away from his Alpha. It hurts for Mark, so he doesn’t even want to imagine how much it must hurt for Donghyuck.

“Does it even matter what I want? You won’t give it to me.” Donghyuck is panting now, struggling to keep his voice down – for someone who’s always been so loud, he’s been surprisingly quiet in bed so far. (Quiet and pliant, isn’t that ironic.) But he didn’t deny it, didn’t he? He wants it, he wants Mark’s cock so bad he orchestrated this little show, to try and make Mark lose control enough to give him what he wants. And Mark wants to give it to him, so hard, fuck him until he cries out, finally letting him hear that sweet, caramel voice of his. “You’re a stubborn fuck who’d rather let me go through my heat alone than fucking- ah!”

Donghyuck slips, this time, when Mark starts stroking him for real, hard and tight. And no matter how much he likes to glare and bristle at Mark’s presence, he really bends like molten glass under Mark’s hands. Mark doesn’t know what to do with all the power he has over his husband. Donghyuck is an Omega, his Omega, and his subject, and his consort, and it’s like someone gave Mark all the power in the world and a husband made of glass. He could smash Donghyuck so easily, in tiny little pieces, and then he would have no husband left, only razor shards ready to pierce his heart. No, Donghyuck can’t be bent, not like that. Mark needs to get him warm, more than warm, scalding hot and bothered and trembling, like glass just out of the furnace, shiny and lethal and beautiful right before it turns into crystal.

“Do you think you deserve it?” Mark asks, stroking Donghyuck with one hand, helping him finger himself with the other, wishing he had more hands so that he could touch Donghyuck all over, rip that thin piece of fabric from where it’s rolled up on his chest and mouth at his nipples and-

“Do you think _you_ deserve it?” shoots back Donghyuck, and Mark jerks him harder in retaliation, faster, rougher, the way he likes to touch himself when he’s desperate and crazy for release. Donghyuck’s mouth falls open but no sound comes out, and his eyes are so big and glazed and he arches his back, helplessly, as everything becomes a little too much. His body is lit, charged like the air before a thunderstorm, and Mark can feel it through the mating bond, the electricity crackling through his own blood as well. He leans down, closer, molding himself against Donghyuck’s heat. In every other circumstance Donghyuck would try to crawl away, but his body recognizes the bond and longs for Mark’s skin, his touch, so he scoots closer instead.

Mark could kiss him right now and Donghyuck wouldn’t say no. Mark could kiss him as a last wish because if he does something so intimate Donghyuck is going to murder him in cold blood tomorrow morning. There’s no space for tenderness in their bed, not when they’re like this, too close, not when Donghyuck’s body quivers in Mark’s hold, every muscle tightening at once as he races towards orgasm. Mark doesn’t kiss Donghyuck, but he hides his face in the crook of Donghyuck’s shoulder, nosing at his nape, where Donghyuck doesn’t smell like honey and wildflowers, but like a boy’s skin only, like salt and sweat and frustration. (Like desire, dark and deep and velvety, like he’s been waiting for Mark to do this.)

“Not yet maybe,” he whispers, against Donghyuck’s skin, “but one day you will think I deserve it, and that day I will fuck you so hard they will hear you cry until the Empire.”

Donghyuck lets out a wet exhale at that, a voiceless, breathless cry, as he tethers on the edge of release. This time, when Mark bites down, it doesn’t hurt.

 

❃

 

Donghyuck’s pants are delicate and quiet, landing against Mark’s neck like tiny petals falling at the end of spring. He shivers when Mark licks at the bite he left on the meat of his shoulder, right next to their mating mark. It won’t be enough to make people believe they’ve had sex, but at least Donghyuck will smell of Mark, he will carry his claim on his skin for everyone to see, if only for the next few days.

Mark rolls over, meaning to lie down on his side of the bed and then maybe go jerk off on his own somewhere since Donghyuck looks too spent to do anything else right now. (Mark is not sure he wants Donghyuck to do anything. Well, he needs Donghyuck to do something, but he doesn’t know if he can deal with the consequences of anything Donghyuck could do to him right now.)

Except the moment their skin stops touching Donghyuck whines, the loudest, neediest sound he let out tonight. One hand comes up to clasp Mark’s sleeve and Mark feels it through the fabric and through their bond and through the whiff of pheromones in the air, the pain and the distress and somehow the fear. His hand finds Donghyuck’s.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, immediately turning towards his husband. Donghyuck’s eyes are squeezed shut, his face contorted in a grimace, his breathing growing more erratic, fast, faster, like he’s in the middle of a panic attack.

“Donghyuck?” Mark calls, the name foreign on his tongue. He never calls Donghyuck by name in reality, after all, but in his own mind he’s said his name enough times that he feels like he owns it sometimes.

Donghyuck shudders, a full body tremor, laces his fingers with Mark’s and takes their joined hands to his chest as he tries to calm down. Physical contact, Mark realizes, shuffling closer again. His assumption is confirmed when he cards his fingers through Donghyuck’s hair, moving the sweaty strands away from his forehead, and Donghyuck melts on the mattress, almost nuzzling Mark’s hand.

“I’m fine,” he exhales. “Give me a moment.”

Mark cups his face, follows the line of Donghyuck’s jaw and then his neck, feeling his pulse under his palm. Donghyuck trembles like a little bird, eyes still shut, breathing through his nose.

“What was that?”

Donghyuck licks his lips before he answers and Mark is glad his eyes are still closed because he can’t help but stare.

“It happens sometimes,” Donghyuck says, in the end. “It goes away, if I wait.”

Well, comforting.

“Why does it happen? What triggered it?”

Donghyuck scoffs and pushes Mark’s hand away instead of answering, but then he winces and grabs it again. He looks at Mark as if his presence offends him, like he always does, just with a side of pain, and asks, “Do I really disgust you that much?”

“Ah?”

He’s frowning, Mark registers despite his own confusion, and his hold on Mark’s hand is so tight it’s bordering on painful, like he cannot afford to let go.

“Am I really that disgusting that you won’t even touch me? Isn’t that too much even for you? I’m your mate, I shouldn’t be begging for your attention.”

 _When have you ever begged for anything_ , Mark wants to ask, but Donghyuck sounds really tired and in pain and Mark kind of feels like there’s something he’s missing, like somehow this whole freakout show has something to do with him.

“This is not a first either, am I right?” he asks, and Donghyuck looks away and tries to let go of his hand again, but Mark is faster. He traps Donghyuck’s hand between his two and prays Donghyuck is too tired to punch him with his other hand.

“I don’t understand,” he says, quickly. “And I don’t know why you expect me to get it, but I don’t, I might never do if you don’t spell things out for me. What just happened to you, Donghyuck?”

Donghyuck really is too tired to do anything but lean back and sigh, looking at Mark like he’s some strange specimen, a fungus or a pretty looking bug. Interesting but not pleasant. He’s starting to behave and sound and feel more like himself, which, in some sense, is really relieving to Mark.

“I’m your Omega,” Donghyuck says, in the end, nose scrunching at the mere thought. “I’m an Omega,” he tries again, “and you claimed me. And then you never touched me again. What did you think would happen? It hurts. You came here and you made me… you made me come, and you didn’t even have the grace to use your own fingers. Not your dick, who wants your stupid dick, but at least your fingers! And now you were going to jerk off somewhere else, weren’t you? Do you have any idea how much it hurts to be constantly rejected by you? If you were going to be like this, why did you even accept to marry me?”

He’s starting to hyperventilate again, but he seems to find a little solace in the way Mark throws a leg over his own and half-lies on top of him, careful not to squish him too much.

“I’m… I didn’t know.”

“No, of course you didn’t. You’re an idiot. Were you going to leave me alone during my heat too? I can’t believe I’m stuck with you for the rest of my life. I want to jump from the window and die.”

Rambling, Donghyuck is rambling. Mark never thought he would see the day, or the night. He doesn’t know Donghyuck well enough to judge, but he also sounds like he might be on the verge of crying and Mark lets go of his hand to rearrange their position on the bed so that he can wrap an arm around him, draw him against his chest. Donghyuck glares a little, but doesn’t protest otherwise. Not now, with his body craving Mark’s touch like air. He leans his cheek against Mark’s chest, huffs at the fabric of Mark’s tunic until Mark undoes half of the buttons and they’re skin on skin. He breathes Mark in. He looks really young like this, young and exhausted, and yet too proud to surrender.

 _What should I do with you?_ Mark thinks. He’s as lost as he’s ever been. It’s like someone gave him the biggest army in the world to conquer a city, a tiny powerless city that just refuses to surrender. It could be so easy to destroy it, Mark would just need to say the order and every resistance would be gone. But then, with everything gone, would it be his win or his loss? There would be nothing left for him to rule.

“I’m really sorry,” he says, and he feels Donghyuck tense on top of him.

“You’re only sorry because you will have to touch me, from now on.”

“I’m sorry because I didn’t know I was hurting you.”

“Ha.” Donghyuck looks up, right into Mark’s eyes, his lips only a breath away from Mark’s lips. “Don’t lie to me, Mark of the Vale of the Giants,” he says, voice tightening like a velvety noose around Mark’s throat. It’s the first time he hears Donghyuck say his name and it sounds like a death sentence. “You wanted to hurt me, and to humiliate me and to punish me. You don’t get to play noble with me now, not when everything you’ve done since we got married was a petty revenge for me beating you when we were children.”

_Oh, no. No you don’t. You don’t get to do this to me either, Donghyuck of the Southern Islands._

“I was angry at you and I won’t deny it, saying no that night felt insanely good because you’re a brat who doesn’t know his place, and you deserved it.” Donghyuck’s nostrils flare and that’s where he would get up and storm out of the room if he could, but he can’t. He can’t even move away from Mark without curling up in pain, and Mark intends to make full use of this chance. “But I wouldn’t have let you spend your heat alone, I never planned to be that cruel to you. I can swear it on this kingdom, I’m not that much of an asshole.”

Donghyuck doesn’t say anything for a long time. Maybe he’s just digesting the information, but maybe he’s just tired of arguing. Mark dares to play with the hair at the back of his neck, trying to get him to relax so that they can both sleep. His erection has long died anyway. He’s in the middle of dozing off when Donghyuck talks again, very low, almost like he’s hoping for Mark to be already asleep and unable to hear him.

“If you weren’t doing it to punish me, does that mean you just don’t like me that way?”

“What?” Mark says, eyes snapping open again to meet Donghyuck’s.

They stare at each other, Mark confused, Donghyuck… somehow bashful and brave at the same time.

“You can tell me, it won’t hurt me. I’m not that fond of you either. You look like an uncooked loaf of bread.”

Well, that’s a whole lie. Donghyuck is gagging for this uncooked loaf of bread, and Mark will make sure to remind him, another time. Just like he’ll remind Donghyuck he once said he didn’t mind if he hated all of it (so why would it be a problem if Mark doesn’t like him that way?) some other time. (And maybe there will come a time in which Mark will confess Donghyuck that the first thing he thought when he felt his scent, there, at the altar, in front of everyone, was that Donghyuck smelled like ruin, and Mark only wanted to kiss him on the mouth and get a taste of that ruin, then bend him over and take all of it – there, at the altar, in front of everyone.)

This time Mark looks away from Donghyuck and sighs with his whole chest. He doesn’t know what to say.

“Am I not pretty enough for you?”

Mark looks down at Donghyuck again. Big eyes, still glazed from coming not even ten minutes ago. Heart-shaped lips, puffy and slick from all the times he bit onto them tonight. Soft, tousled hair where Mark wants to dip his hands and pull, tilt Donghyuck’s face up for a kiss. His small face and his long lashes and his cute nose and long legs and the way his cock looked, pretty and full, against his Mark’s fair skin. His scent, glory and gold and flowers. Mark can feel it even now, every time he breathes. It’s like being out in the wild, at the beginning of summer, the sun shining too bright, the wind breathing too slow. He feels light-headed.

“You look exquisite,” he says, mentally cursing himself for the choice of a word so intimate, so honest, but the way Donghyuck’s eyes widen and his lips part in surprise is rewarding enough. “But you’re always angry with me and I didn’t want our first time together to be out of anger.”

Donghyuck closes his mouth, frowns a little. He hides his face in the crook of Mark’s neck again. When he speaks, every word itches under Mark’s skin.

“Who would’ve told you were such a gross, hopeless romantic. It’s a pity it’s all wasted on me. We’re never going to fall in love, after all, you and I.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> achievement unlocked: sexy times  
> achievement unlocked: skinship  
> achievement unlocked: honest conversations  
> achievement unlocked: heartbreak
> 
> do you proceed to the next level, player mark lee? yes/no


	5. v. there’s gold in the air and I have found nothing as gentle as you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 900 kudos ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ I don't really know what to say ㅠㅠㅠㅠ  
> I'll try to answer last chapter's comments today after I publish or tomorrow (I'm always late with comments, but I'm doing them all!).  
> Also as you've noticed I'm trying to stick to a tentative weekly update schedule, but my writing is very inconsistent so please don't get used to this pace ;; I might slow down in the future because I want to update both the vampire au and the witch au, since many people have asked. But right now I'm really fired up about honeymouthed and I'm writing a lot so let's enjoy it while it lasts.  
> Many of you have told me your theories about Donghyuck and what he feels and I've been delighted to hear them. Donghyuck is a very complicated character, a few readers asked for a snippet of his pov but I feel not knowing what he thinks right now is essential to understand Mark's frustration better. You're always free to scream your theories at me though <3  
> I hope you enjoy the chapter!!
> 
> \- [chapter title inspiration](https://avolitorial.tumblr.com/post/185569972447/a-belated-birthday-gift-for-verilies)

To really know what a man is made of, make him listen to your brother talking about endemic species of beetles with your Minister of Coin for twenty minutes instead of debating taxes like they should have been doing. One day, when someone will ask Mark who first gave such a wise advice, he will proudly reply, “I did.”

For now, Mark can only hide a yawn behind his flute, hoping his brother is too enthralled by the conversation to notice. In doing so, he meets the eyes of Jaemin, seventh prince in the line of succession for the title of Emperor of Na, Granduke of Condor Peak and lord of at least three other provinces, son of the favorite wife of the emperor, probably his old man’s favorite son too, according to the rumors, who despite all his titles seems just as bored as Mark is. They hint a toasting gesture, to their own tedium, and smile as they sip the sweet red wine.

The thing is, Mark could have even come to like Jaemin. They’re the same age, they’re both princes with great powers and great responsibilities, both Alpha, and both decently skilled in warfare, if the chronicles of Jaemin’s triumph over the white-skinned barbarian threatening his father’s domains from West are to be considered true. Jaemin is smart, friendly and prone to laughter, and Mark almost comes to like him. Almost.

Every chance of any resemblance of friendship between Mark of the Vale of the Giants and Jaemin of the Na Empire dies this lovely morning, in the queen’s summer terrace, when Donghyuck and his best friend Jeno suddenly appear under the stone arc that leads to the outer gardens.

Mark can feel Donghyuck arrive, like an ache in his gut, a sweet burn, and he can't help but look up, eyes instinctively drawn to his husband’s figure. He catches Donghyuck mid-laughter, his smile almost too wide for his face, and his face a little too close to Jeno’s. The Prince Consort is wearing ivory and amber, his hair is ruffled and swept away by the wind, making him look effortlessly handsome, and he’s leaning into his best friend in a way that would be deemed borderline scandalous by anyone in the Vale – a way that makes Mark’s blood race in annoyance. Their eyes meet and thankfully Donghyuck reads the warning in Mark’s disgruntled face and takes a step away from Jeno, the both of them schooling their laughter into a more appropriate expression for a palace meeting just in time, a moment before the minister and Sungmin can turn and see them.

(But they’re not fast enough for Jaemin, Mark realizes. The Imperial Prince is sitting right next to Mark and there’s no way he didn’t see them arrive. Mark can see him in his peripheral vision, squaring up and tilting his head to the side, staring even. When Mark turns to look at him, Jaemin’s eyes are fixed on the empty space between Donghyuck and Jeno, his expression carefully neutral, unreadable. When he meets Mark’s gaze, he smiles, tight and sharp and a little dangerous, and Mark doesn’t find it in himself to smile back.)

“Your Highness,” the Minister of Coin calls, interrupting the silent conversation between the two princes, “what a lovely surprise.”

Donghyuck skips two steps with a little jump and joins them under the grapevine pergola. He bows to Sungmin first, then even lower to Jaemin, then to the minister. He barely acknowledges Mark’s presence, but he doesn’t need to. Two imprints of Mark’s teeth are bare on his neck, both the mating mark from their wedding night and the one Mark left three nights ago, the proof that he’s Mark’s and that Mark is his. Mark should tell him to cover them – it’s not decorous to flaunt your mating bite like that, not in the Vale of the Giants, but Donghyuck is not from the Vale. He’s from the islands, where people draw in colorful ink around their mating bite, showing it off like a treasure. He’s from the islands and the entire court of the Vale has been talking about the royal couple’s sex life, or lack thereof, so at least now the royal couple is finally giving them something to talk about.

Lord Kim does stare, indeed, but he has the grace to politely look away before Mark can glare at him. Prince Jaemin stares too. But, unlike the minister, he doesn’t even try to be inconspicuous about it, his eyes lingering on Hyuck’s collarbones before they move to the bite marks on his shoulder.

It’s a lovely morning, right at the end of summer, one of the last warm days of the season, but it seems, to Mark, that they’re suddenly all walking on thin ice. He doesn’t like the way Jaemin is looking at his husband, not at all. Imperial prince or not, esteemed guest or not, that’s not a way anyone should be looking at someone else’s husband, unapologetically, boldly.

Sungmin, still unaware of the tension suddenly spiking between the two princes, gets up, welcoming Donghyuck and Jeno to join them.

“Good morning, Donghyuck! Are you going to visit the park?”

The familiarity Sungmin uses to talk to Donghyuck sounds almost offensive compared to the cold formality between Donghyuck and Mark, and Mark suddenly feels self-conscious. Is this what everyone sees? Donghyuck beaming back, Donghyuck polite and charming and funny. The Donghyuck Mark never gets to see.

“Yes! I’ve heard from the queen that this might be our last chance to see the goldenroad fields, so I asked Jeno to walk with me to the river!”

“You should’ve asked Mark to take you there, he’s more familiar than anyone else with mother’s gardens. Except maybe mother herself.”

Mark is suddenly pulled back from his antsy thoughts and he can only stare at his brother in the most betrayed expression he can muster, and then at Donghyuck, who blinks, caught in Sungmin’s trap without realizing it. It’s clear he was looking forward to a morning spent with his best friend and not with the husband he still unofficially dislikes, and Mark is too annoyed at him and at Jeno and at Sungmin and even at Prince Jaemin right now to do this.

“I’m afraid I’m rather busy at the moment, brother,” he tries to say, but Sungmin shakes his head.

“Nonsense, if you have time to stay here and listen to me talking about scarabs with Lord Kim and Prince Jaemin then you certainly have the time to take your husband to see the flowers.”

Mark opens his mouth. Of course he doesn’t have the time to stay here, yawning behind his hands and subtly envying Yukhei who’s probably at the training fields already. But his father asked him to talk to Jaemin. Subtly. To ask him about the rebels at the borders, if he can, maybe try to find out why the young prince hasn’t left to go back to the Empire yet. That’s the only reason Mark would willingly submit himself to a morning of this torture, and he certainly cannot talk to Prince Jaemin if he’s busy babysitting Donghyuck and his boyfriend around the garden, can’t he?

“I would actually like to see the flowers too, if it’s not too much of a bother.”

And that’s it, the end of any of Mark’s attempts to actually befriend Prince Jaemin of the Na Empire.

They all turn around towards Jaemin, who’s leaning back against the cushioned chair like a giant, lazy cat basking in the late summer sun, his legs spread and his smile as amiable and charming as ever, as he waits for an answer. It will be a positive answer, he’s sure of it. Mark is sure of it as well. No one can tell no to an envoy from the Empire, even less to a Prince. Especially not when you’re just a Prince Consort like Donghyuck.

And yet Mark can’t help but feel a wave of frustration when Donghyuck nods and puts on a smile as amiable as Jaemin’s. “Of course Your Highness, it would be an honor if you joined us.”

And that’s it, Mark cannot leave his husband go alone with an unmated Alpha. Not even with Jeno and Jungwoo guarding his back. That’s what he tells himself as he finds himself leading the way towards the river, where the goldenroad flowers are in full bloom, the last full bloom of the summer.

❃

“Walk with me, Your Highness.”

Mark hesitates. In front of them, Jaemin and Donghyuck are kneeling in front of the river, their heads so close their noses are almost touching. Donghyuck’s hair shines like golden silk under the sun. He’s lost the amber tunic somewhere around the shore of the river and now he’s leaning towards the water in just loose pants and an ivory, thin shirt, looking barely short of decent and absolutely breathtaking. Jaemin laughs at something he just said, a sudden, spiky laughter with too many teeth, and shuffles even closer, and Mark is jealous.

“You should have faith in him.”

The leaves of the maple tree cast irregular shadows on Jeno’s serious face as he offers Mark his arm. They’re not friends, he and Mark, they’ve never been friends. Passive aggressive acquaintances, at most. Mark likes Jeno and his silly humor and his eye smile and the way his presence was always solid and reassuring at Donghyuck’s side when they were children, his Beta scent never failing to calm his best friend every time Donghyuck looked ready to beat Mark’s ass. But Jeno always stood on Donghyuck’s side, and Mark stood on the other, his own, so they’ve never had a chance to be friends. And now Mark married Donghyuck and sometimes he wonders, did he steal him from Jeno? Would Jeno steal Donghyuck from him? No, he thinks, he’s already losing if he’s thinking of Donghyuck as something that can be stolen, not someone who can make his own decisions.

“It’s not him I don’t trust,” Mark says with a sigh, linking arms with Jeno – because they could’ve been friends, all this time, and they weren’t, but now that Mark married Donghyuck they are on the same side, finally, and Mark needs all the friends he can find. “You know what they say about Jaemin of the Na Empire?”

Jeno nods. Of course he knows, Jeno was supposed to be Donghyuck’s advisor, had Donghyuck been crowned king, just like Sungmin and Dongyoung are going to be Mark’s when he will be crowned. And advisors have their own way to get information. Rumors say the emperor sent his prettiest prince to check if the union between the Vale and the Islands is really firm and solid enough to withstand an invasion, and if it’s not, well…

“He’s not going to seduce Donghyuck out of this marriage,” Jeno says with a shrug. “He’s not going to seduce Donghyuck at all. No one can. No offence, Your Highness.”

“Why not?”

Jeno fights back a smile, as if laughing at a joke Mark cannot understand.

“Donghyuck is not the kind of boy who gets crushes on annoying princes, you see.”

Donghyuck’s scent shifts, barely so, in a way that only Mark would be able to notice because of their bond. The problem is that Mark does notice and he jerks back, just in time to see Jaemin taking Donghyuck’s hand between his own to place a yellow flower in his palm. He almost slaps Jeno’s hand away when the other boy tries to stop him from going there and challenge that shameless, arrogant asshole to a duel. He tries to count to ten, as Jeno shuffles closer.

“I know, and I understand why you’re worried. He’s very… He really is a prince of the Empire, he’s terribly entitled, and on top of that we can’t even say no to him. But Donghyuck is a prince of the Southern Islands. You think he doesn’t know what Jaemin’s purpose is? He won’t doom both of our countries just to get back at you for not being fully capable in bed. Now, please, smile. Jaemin will just feel more validated if he sees he can rile you up just by chatting with Hyuck.”

Mark ignores the jab at his sexual life, reminds himself he could have Jeno exiled to the islands for this offense – empty promises, he would never do that to Donghyuck, or to the diplomatic relations between their countries, but it’s nice knowing he could – and huffs at Jeno instead. “Jaemin? Are you on first name basis with the Imperial prince now?”

Lee Jeno, for the first time since Mark ever met him, fourteen years ago, has the decency to blush. “We talked at the wedding, okay? And he spends most of his free time in the library, so I met him a few times. He’s actually decent when he’s not…” Jeno licks his lips nervously, but suddenly his eyes widen, “doing that.”

Mark turns to see Jaemin ruffling Donghyuck’s hair. Now, that’s too much. On all accounts. He growls low in his throat.

“Yeah, I think… I think it’s time to separate them now. I’ll take prince Jaemin back to the castle, if I am allowed.”

“Yes, that would be ideal. We should go back, before I start a war.”

“Wait.” Jeno fidgets for a moment, under the shadow of the maple tree. “Donghyuck really likes flowers, you know?”

Mark blinks. “Yeah?”

He receives back a confused frown and half of a grimace. “You’re so dense, how does Hyuck do this?”

He doesn’t, Mark thinks. Donghyuck never tells him anything clearly. They should start working on that, to be honest. After Mark has killed Prince Jaemin.

“As in, he would really love to stay out for a little more,” Jeno continues, speaking slowly. “He’s actually wanted to come here for days and we’ve heard that the weather will worsen starting from tomorrow, so he won’t have another chance.”

“Oh. I think he can stay if he wants, the gardens are open.”

“Your Highness,” Jeno says, and the more polite his speech gets the less polite he sounds, “forgive me if I’m blunt, but you’re too obtuse for your own good and I need to go there and stop a diplomatic crisis from happening. Hyuck is an Omega, he can’t exactly walk outside on his own. And in this country it wouldn’t be proper to have him out with just one Alpha guard alone, which is why I was going with him and Jungwoo today. But if I go back and you go back and Jungwoo isn’t even here, he will have to come back as well. So you could be nice and stay with him. You know, being his husband and everything.”

Oh.

“Oh,” Mark only whispers, and Jeno huffs at him, exasperated, but before he can leave to stop Jaemin from scenting Mark’s husband out of pettiness, Mark grabs his wrist. “Wait, there’s something I need to ask you-”

“Prince Mark, I wonder when you intend to join us. From all the time you’re spending with Lord Lee there, I could almost think you married him instead of our lovely Donghyuck here.”

Jaemin’s voice raises from the sea of yellow flowers and Jeno jerks away from Mark’s touch as if he was bitten by a poisonous snake.

Mark tries to count to ten again, he really does. One day, his quick temper will really be the death of him, and that day is probably today, as he steps forward and glares at the prince of the giant empire threatening to invade them like he’d gladly put him to the sword.

“I’m sorry, Prince Jaemin. I didn’t really want to intrude. You seemed to be having so much fun with our lovely Donghyuck.”

Jaemin’s eyes kindle with interest as his mouth opens up in a smug, arrogant smile. Too many teeth, thinks Mark again, he looks like one of the giant sharks that circled the fleet at Cape Conk, big, smart beasts with a penchant for blood.

“Ah, were you jealous? We were just rekindling an old friendship, I guess. Did you know Donghyuck and I were engaged, a couple of years ago? It was before I presented, of course. We never got to meet, but we exchanged letters and I’ll have you know it was delightful!”

“Enough, Your Highness.”

Donghyuck’s voice sounds bored, but Mark has been on the other side of this particular tone too many times not to realize how angry Donghyuck really is. He finds himself taking a step back and actually not plummeting the Na Prince to the ground, and even Jaemin stops talking immediately. Donghyuck is actually smiling, in that half-amused, half-patronizing way he smiles before hitting his enemy so hard he won’t ever be able to get up.

“You know, I actually just wanted to see the flowers, I don’t care about who of you Alpha has the biggest knot. You can go to the training field if you want to fight, or maybe to the kindergarten if you insist on behaving like children. Jeno, would you take Prince Jaemin back to the palace?”

Jeno nods and turns to Jaemin. “Yeah, I think we should go, Your Highness.”

Jaemin looks between the two of them, takes a step back and bows to Donghyuck. “I apologize if I have overstepped my boundaries.”

“You have,” Donghyuck says, with an air of finality that makes Jaemin wince. “And I accept your apology, but you should really leave now.”

Jaemin bows again and follows Jeno on the cobblestone road that will take them back to the palace. The wind blows, sweeping the flowers around them and raising a whirlwind of golden petals. The wind blows and Mark looks at Donghyuck, shining under the sun, with golden flowers in his hair and pink flushing his cheeks, the hint of a pout on his face now that his morning has being ruined.

“We should head back too,” Donghyuck whispers, carding his fingers through his hair to pin a rebel strand behind his ear. The wind blows again, a mischievous, playful wind, thwarting all his efforts.

Mark sits down in the middle of the flowers, lets himself drown in a sea of yellow. Goldenroad, they call this flower, the road the goddess takes to close the doors of summer at the end of the season. It fits Donghyuck, somehow.

“Your Highness?” Donghyuck calls. “Shouldn’t we go? You said you were busy.”

No, Mark thinks. Not Your Highness. Call me Mark. Say my name, not as an insult, not even as a blessing, not yet. Not as a prayer – perhaps there will be time for that, in the future, perhaps not, but it’s going to be fine either way. Mark never expected love from this marriage, but he didn’t expect this cold formality either, and for now he just want Donghyuck to say his name like it’s a name, blooming on his lips like a late summer flower, golden and sweet and sunkissed.

Instead, he says, “It’s really nice. I think we should stay here a little more.”

❃

They walk along the banks of the stream, side by side, close, but not close enough to touch, following the belt of goldenroad flowers that bloom next to the water like a golden crown. It’s quiet but not awkward for once. The flowers must have put Donghyuck in a good mood, because his scent is mild and fresh, spiked with happiness and wonder. It’s… nice. Mark is so used to smell reticence on him, and belligerence, and frustration and stubbornness, all coiled tightly in his chest, squeezing him, burning him alive - keeping him alive. Donghyuck’s smell is thick and alluring when he’s trying to fight against his own nature, against his Alpha and the Omega within himself at the same time. It’s thrilling to be next to him and be aware of how much of a battlefield this boy can become, makes Mark want to jump into the fight, mess him up even more, ruin him and get ruined in return. But this, this is nice. There’s something extremely refreshing, extremely clean and pure in the way Donghyuck smells now, at peace. Mark has the inexplicable urge to reach out and take his hand, but he’s too afraid to ruin the moment if he does.

“Did you come here often when you were young?” Donghyuck asks, breaking the silence between them. He stops, crouching in front of a flower to collect a yellow ladybug from its petals. He lets it walk from a finger to another, an endless bridge of warm skin.

Mark swallows, his throat too dry to answer. Donghyuck lets the small bug fly away with a flick of his wrist.

“Yes,” Mark croaks, in the end. “Before I started training with Zhoumi I used to come to play here every day.”

“You must know the gardens very well, then.”

It’s small talk, just small talk. Civil, polite, absolutely meaningless. This is the kind of conversation Mark used to have with Dongsoon, back when she would come to visit. They would walk around the gardens, chat for a while about inane things, and then Donghyuck would appear out of nowhere, a sword in his hands, Jeno in tow, and challenge Mark to a duel.

Mark snorts and Donghyuck sends him a puzzled look.

“What? A good memory?”

Mark shakes his head. He doesn’t say, _Actually no, you once tripped me here, in this exact point. Do you remember? We were seven years old and you had a sling and you told me to leave you alone, even though you had been the one attacking me._ He doesn’t want to fight with Donghyuck today, so he says, “There’s a pavilion on the other side. It’s getting pretty hot, do you want to head there?”

Donghyuck’s eyes narrow and he shields them from the sun with his hand as he squints to see the golden and blue roof of the pavilion. It’s quite far away.

“Or we could just head back,” Mark adds. “We’re probably going to miss lunch.”

“I doubt someone will scold us for spending some time together, to be honest.”

Donghyuck might have a point. The entire court would be delighted to know Mark spent time with his husband. They’ll be a little less delighted when they realize nothing has happened, again, but Mark couldn’t care less about what they think. He cares about what Donghyuck thinks, though.

“So, do you want to stay some more?” he asks.

He’s the one asking, but it feels like he just gave the right answer to a question he didn’t even know was being asked to him. Donghyuck’s eyes widen and then he lights up and then – ah, he does look pretty when he’s smiling, but he looks the best when he’s smiling at Mark.

“Race you to the bridge then,” he says mischievously, and before Mark can stop him, before Mark can even process what he said, he’s dashing.

Mark stares, taken aback, eyes fixed on Donghyuck back for a single, endless moment of white noise. Then something clicks in his brain, a moment of clarity, as he’s suddenly aware of everything – the chirping of the birds, the buzzing of the bees, the whisper of the wind against the thick stems of the flower – before he zeroes on Donghyuck like he's the only thing in the world, his pulse echoing in Mark’s chest, his footsteps so loud they’re almost colorful and Mark swears he could see them with his eyes closed.

It’s the world tipping over, thousands of years of instinct and Alpha genetics suddenly taking over Mark’s whole being, his limbs and his heart and his lungs. An overflowing dash of power runs through him from the tip of his hair to the point of his fingers where, not even less than fifteen generations ago, sharp claws would’ve appeared.

Centuries of evolution have taught humans how to prevail over basic instinct. The body has forgotten how to shapeshift, bones cracking and reassembling, growing claws and fangs and fur more sturdy than chainmail. The body has forgotten, but the mind remembers (in its deepest recesses, in dungeons of thoughts so dark and twisted Mark would feel ashamed to entertain them during the day.) It’s the thrill of the hunt, the adrenaline, the _need_ to chase that can only be triggered by the sight of flight. Mark has never felt it, not with Donghyuck (usually Donghyuck runs against him, not away from him, always a threat and never a prey), never before today. He doesn’t even know if Donghyuck is aware of what he’s doing, how loudly his retreating figure is calling for Mark, like a spell, like a siren, luring him with the need to take take _take_ , not stopping until he has his Omega pinned to the ground, at his mercy. He doesn’t care if Donghyuck is doing it on purpose or not, because he can’t defy the call of the hunter. He runs after Donghyuck, faster than he’s ever run in his life, because his Omega his nimble and agile, and Mark must be better than him to prove himself worthy. His Omega is fast and smart and perfect, a strong Omega for a strong Alpha, and his Omega is his to take, so Mark dashes.

He catches Donghyuck before he can step on the bridge. He spins him around, ignores Donghyuck’s surprised and breathless gasp, and in a moment they’re rolling on the ground, Donghyuck pinned down against a bed of crushed flowers right next to the bank of the river, Mark sitting on top of him, growling in victory.

They both catch their breath, chests heaving, faces flushed. Donghyuck doesn’t look angry, or scared, or offended, for once. He looks thrilled, his eyes big and blown out and pretty, his mouth pink and shiny, his fingers curling around strands of grass.

“I won,” Mark says, in a breathless whisper.

“You didn’t.”

“I caught you.”

“I raced you to the bridge and none of us is on the bridge now.”

Mark groans and tries to get up, _to win for once, fuck,_ but Donghyuck pulls him down by the collar of his shirt again, his other hand clasping the back of Mark's shirt.

“Now I caught you,” he says, sounding too amused for his own good.

“You think you’re super clever, Donghyuck.”

Donghyuck smirks. “ _You_ think you’re super clever, Your Highness. The big strong Alpha, isn’t that what you are? You want to know a secret, big strong Alpha?” He arches against Mark – burning everything he touches – propping himself up on his elbows to whisper in his ear, his voice scalding hot against Mark’s skin, and sweet like honey.

“I think I won.”

“What?”

And then Donghyuck is dislodging him with a powerful push, and Mark is rolling back, and then he’s falling, rolling down the riverbank, until he tumbles in the water with a messy splash. When he resurfaces, spluttering and fucking fuming, the only thing he can hear Donghyuck’s unrestrained, wild laughter. He looks up and sure, of course, his husband is leaning against the railing of the bridge, barely keeping himself up from how much he’s laughing.

“You should’ve seen your face, priceless. Really priceless.”

“Oh, I hope you’re feeling hot, Your Grace,” Mark splutters, pushing a handful of hair away from his face. “Because you’re going to join me here very soon.”

Donghyuck cocks his head to the side, sends Mark a sly smirk as he hugs himself.

“Oh, now I’m so scared.”

Throwing him into the water after a twenty minutes chase is the highlight of the past five years of Mark’s life.

❃

They spread Donghyuck’s amber tunic on the floor of the pavilion and lie down on it, their legs propped against the railing, their fingers brushing as they shuffle closer to avoid the puddles of sunlight trickling down the columns and onto the wood. The sun is strong now, hot and blinding midday sun, the kind that hurts the eyes and kidnaps children from their cribs. It’s an old legend in the islands, a story mothers would tell their babies to keep them from wandering around during the hottest hours of the day. Donghyuck and Dongsoon’s nanny told Mark too, once, when he was visiting the twins at the Coraline, the red keep built on top of the capital of the Southern Kingdom.

Mark inches closer, almost to make sure the sun doesn’t steal Donghyuck while they lie there, vulnerable and lazy, waiting for their clothes to dry. They can’t really go back looking like this, not with Donghyuck’s white shirt clinging to his chest in a way that leaves no space to imagination. Mark had teased him about it, as soon as they emerged from the water, and Donghyuck had replied with a quick glance to Mark’s pants, glued to his crotch and painfully tight, that had almost made him squeal. They had run towards the pavilion, shedding water at every step, and there they are, Mark, Donghyuck and the deafening song of the last cicadas of the year.

“You shouldn’t believe Jaemin, by the way.”

Mark’s eyes slowly blink open. It’s not that he believes Jaemin, he just doesn’t trust him.

“You know he was just trying to get a reaction from you, right? We were never even promised.”

“Oh, really?”

Donghyuck frowns. “There were talks about it, but his father was convinced he would be an Alpha, so he never agreed to an engagement.”

Or maybe he just didn’t want to let him leave, to faraway islands on the other side of the continent, an entire hostile kingdom between them – Mark’s kingdom. Jaemin is rumored to be the emperor’s favorite son. He’ll never inherit, nor his father would want him to inherit – Jaemin is too volatile, too whimsical and happy to be a good emperor – but he’s the most beloved prince of the empire for a reason.

“Did you ever meet him?” Mark asks, trying to convince himself he’s not jealous.

“Nah. He just sent letters. Almost every month. We were mail friends for three years and then fell out of touch. But he remembered you, from my letters. Earlier, he said you don’t look as bad as I used to describe you.”

“I’m sure you painted a very nice picture of me.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know…” Donghyuck says, with a yawn, before he turns on the other side, stretching his limbs in every direction like a starfish. Like this, unkempt and unbothered, he looks just like Mark remembers him, the golden prince he was before he presented. Mark missed him a little. The new Donghyuck is painfully pretty, painfully clean and painfully polite, like a well polished blade. The old Donghyuck was colorful and loud and and brave and annoying and so, so good with a sword. Mark misses sparring with him. He never won, in more than ten years. He probably never will, because Donghyuck is not allowed to spar, not anymore. He’s not allowed to walk alone and he’s not allowed to travel and to wear comfortable clothes and to wear his hair short and to show his neck bare. And Mark would like to see him doing all those things.

“I’m surprised Jungwoo hasn’t come looking for you,” Mark murmurs. “He takes his job as your bodyguard really seriously.”

“He probably thinks we’re fucking.” Donghyuck’s tone is dull and neutral, but the air around them freezes anyway. Mark closes his eyes, holding his breath and Donghyuck squirms a little next to him, probably grimacing. “Imagine the disappointment when he realizes we just played in the water like kids.”

“Well, at least it was funny. Funnier than sex,” Mark adds, and Donghyuck lets out one of his sour scoffs.

“I wouldn’t know, since I never tried,” – Mark chokes on the information, white energy flashing in front of his eyes for a moment, as he waits for the thunder to drop – “and thanks to who?”

“Thanks to me,” he replies, in a tight voice. “We’ve already been there.”

“No, we’ve never been there, actually. You don’t really want to go there.” Donghyuck sighs. “Forget I ever said anything.”

But he said it, he said it already. And Mark hates this kind of attitude. If you don’t want to talk about it, then don’t bring it up. But Donghyuck is a little like that. Mean. Petty. A manipulative selfish prick. Mark wants to throw his words back against him. He wants to tell him, _okay, let’s do it, right here, right now,_ and he wants to pin Donghyuck against the wood and cage him with his body and scare him. (Except he wouldn’t scare him, he would just make him angrier, which is what Donghyuck wants. Which is what Mark wants.) He needs to calm down, he realizes. He looks at the naked sun until it’s impressed like a permanent scar on the back of his eyelids and lets the sting in his eyes ground him, distracting him from Donghyuck’s angry scent.

It’s a little like when they were younger, sparring in the dusty courtyard of a fortress or in the palace garden or on the beach in front of the Coraline. Donghyuck was angry, quick on his feet and incredibly smart. Coming up with a tactic against him was useless, because he was always two steps ahead of Mark, he could read his moves and counterattack immediately. Mark knows, he can feel it deeply, that whatever he says now, Donghyuck will find a way to twist it into something that will make him angry. He knows, because as much as he doesn’t know his husband very well, he knows the kid who wouldn’t leave him alone, the golden prince that tormented his childhood, and he knows that, as much as they don’t look like each other, they’re the same person. And Donghyuck has always chosen to be angry, when it came to Mark.

So Mark doesn’t say anything. Instead, he turns towards Donghyuck – eyes on him because, among all contradicting, empty lies Donghyuck can says, his body is always honest – and asks, “What do you want me to do?”

Donghyuck hesitates.

“Me?”

“Yes. You. Nothing I do seems to satisfy you, so what do you think I should do to make you happy?”

Donghyuck closes his eyes and rolls against a pool of sunshine. The answer is on the tip of his tongue and Mark can see how he almost says it, before he bites his bottom lip to stop himself.

 _What is going on into that pretty head of yours?_ he wants to ask. _Why don’t you trust me?_

“Would you really fuck me if I asked?” Donghyuck asks, looking at Mark.

“If that’s what you really want, yes, I would. I will. I’m your husband, it’s… It’s my duty to make you happy. Would that really make you happy?”

Donghyuck’s scent flickers, like the flame of a candle. Gone is the golden prince that Mark knows so well. This is Mark’s husband, and his face is unreadable again. (And yet Mark feels, deep down, that he must have disappointed him, somehow. Maybe there was a mute question, one that was asked along the way without words, and Mark missed it, and now the chance is gone, the moment is gone, the right answer is gone. Donghyuck’s warmth, too, is gone, on the last day of summer.)

“There’s little you can do that would make me happy,” Donghyuck says, evading Mark’s question. “I want to go home now.”

“How can we get closer if you keep doing this, Donghyuck?”

“That’s the point, Your Highness. It’s very bold of you to assume I would ever want to get closer to you.”

One step forward, two steps back. Summer draws her curtain over the hills, and Mark takes Donghyuck home, on a road of fallen petals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... Aaaand there was an attempt. Sorry Mark, you tried. It wasn't your fault this time. /patpat/  
> Next chapter might be rated again, ig? I can't promise anything bc I never follow plans but that's technically the plan.  
> ♥


	6. vi. autumn comes on cold wings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the support, again, and for all your theories ;; I could only answer to some of them because otherwise it would be spoiler, but most of you have been very good at picking up the hints, I'm super pleased.  
> Now, I can imagine this whole one step forward two steps back thing might be very frustrating, but it wouldn't be slow burn if it was not slow, right? And yet maybe it's time to move things along a little bit from now on...  
> My notes this time are very brief, please enjoy the fic ♥
> 
> \- [chapter title inspiration](https://avolitorial.tumblr.com/post/164988364702/bracketed-from-translation-by-anne-carson%20rel=)

Summer comes and ends, and the dry, blinding heat of that day at the lake dissipates. The sun is swallowed by a thick, wet fog that falls from the hills like smoke, spreading tendrils of white around the palace like a bridal veil for the upcoming queen of winter.

Then, it rains.

It rains for days, and the palace grows humid and gloomy and restless. Donghyuck too grows restless, and pale, and weak, haunting the corridors like a lost soul wrapped in one of Mark’s winter jackets, sneezing and coughing and looking and sounding and feeling miserable.

He clings onto Mark at night, shivering from the cold, from the pain, from all the pride he has to swallow to ask for help. _It hurts,_ he whispers, between chapped lips, and Mark draws him in his arms, tangling their legs together, and rubs his back until Donghyuck’s body stops quaking against his chest. Donghyuck hides his face in the curve of Mark’s neck, mouthing at the bite mark he left there in a way he must know makes Mark feel jumpy and hot under his skin despite the chill in the air. Mark just holds him tighter.

After a week of polite but insistent rain, the kind that keeps knocking on the glass despite your refusal to open the window, the sky opens up and the entire universe pours through the crack in the form of cold, angry droplets that will probably turn into hail later in the afternoon. Donghyuck doesn’t get up that morning. He holes up in his and Mark’s room, hiding under the comforter and whining, wordlessly and pitifully croaky, whenever someone tries to move him. The palace physician comes, looks at him and then at Mark, who’s standing next to the bed and looking like he’s ready to personally behead anyone willing to hurt his mate. The doctor huffs tiredly and tells Mark to leave.

“Hovering will not make him feel any better, Your Highness. Let me do my job in peace.”

So Mark leaves. He leaves and he feels the bond stretching between them, frayed and feeble like Donghyuck’s presence at the back of his mind. Mark spends the rest of the morning in a disarray, meeting with the lords and with his brother until Sungmin tells him to leave, please, _you are totally useless here_. He goes to the training barracks after that, and spars with Yukhei in the muddy courtyard to keep his mind off the shivering lump of blankets he had to leave in their room. His training sword falls against Yukhei’s shield like a sledgehammer, leaving a dent in the reinforced wood, and then another, and another, until the shield splinters in Yukhei’s hand and Yukhei curses and tells Mark that it’s enough for today, before Mark actually kills him.

(Mark prays, the whole time. The entire palace is holding its breath under the storm, praying for the Prince Consort’s heat to come. But Mark, Mark prays it’s not Donghyuck’s heat. Please. _Please._ )

“It’s too soon,” he tells Yukhei, as they catch their breath under the canopy in front of the barracks, staring at the clicking of the rain against the ground. “We didn’t even talk about it.”

“You don’t usually talk about heat sex, you just…” Yukhei shrugs, makes a vulgar gesture with his hands that has Mark rolling his eyes in annoyance, wiggles his eyebrows. “Do I have to draw you some instructions?”

Mark pushes him down the fence, sending him ass down into a puddle of mud.

“That wasn’t very nice, Your Highness, I was just trying to help.”

“If his heat comes I’m dead meat, Yukhei. I’m dead meat if I don’t fuck him, because it will hurt like hell for him and because my father will disown me if I don’t fuck Donghyuck through his heat.”

“Then fuck him, what’s stopping you?”

Nothing, really. Except Mark knows it’s Donghyuck’s first time – a secret Donghyuck has probably let out by mistake the last time they talked, in the gardens, but a secret Donghyuck has entrusted Mark with, nevertheless – and he has a feeling Donghyuck wants to remember it. Their wedding night makes more sense, in light of this revelation. If it was his first time, Donghyuck probably wanted it to happen on his own terms, when he could fool himself into thinking he had said yes, he had given consent, rather than during his heat, when he’ll be completely at Mark’s mercy. Mark wonders if Donghyuck has ever experienced a heat before he was shipped to the Vale for their wedding. He wonders how hard it was, how painful, how confusing. He wonders if Donghyuck had managed to stay lucid through it, and if he hadn’t, how much the experience must have scared him.

Donghyuck is hard to read, confusing on his best days and a gorgeous maze on his worst, and Mark has never been good at solving puzzles, but a few things seem somewhat clear at this point of this relationship.

First, Donghyuck craves control. He craves it like a drowning man craves air – in a desperate, dishevelled way, limbs thrashing, chest caving in in its need for oxygen, eyes squeezed shut in pain, Donghyuck craves control because no one would ever give it to him. He craves it because he had it, he had it all, and now he’s at the mercy of the sea, all alone and lost in unknown, stormy waters, sharks circling around him waiting to tear him apart, and the more he thrashes to stay afloat the more tired he gets, and he can feel the end coming, and he’s afraid. He’s afraid.

Second, Donghyuck craves losing control. Every Omega does, this is something Mark knows. It’s part of them, ingrained in their biology, like the need to nest and the burn in their belly when they’re fertile, like their sweet scent and their even sweeter taste. Donghyuck was never raised to be an Omega, but he is one, whether he accepts it or not, whether he wants it or not, and his whole wellbeing is connected to his ability to trust someone enough to let them take care of him. And Donghyuck craves that, on so many levels, he craves it and he hates it, in a willful, guilty way. And he’s angry at himself for being unable to accept his own nature, for dooming himself to a constant pain just because he refuses to submit to Mark like a good Omega would do. (And Mark wonders how it must feel, for Donghyuck, who’s always been the best at everything he did, to fail at being himself. How painful and conflicting and humiliating it must be, for him. How exhausting.)

Third, whatever Mark decides to do with him, to give him control or to take it from him, Donghyuck will hate him. He hates him because he needs to hate someone, and he can’t hate his country for sending him there, not when he fooled himself into choosing it on his own, nor he can hate Mark’s country for needing an Omega Consort. He can hate himself – and he probably does, more than Mark likes to think about – and he can hate Mark – and he certainly does, he’s never been shy about it.

“We should’ve talked about it, his heat. How would we take care of it. I told him I’d fuck him through it and he seemed relieved, but that’s just because he was afraid I wanted to punish him by leaving him alone when it comes.”

“Yeah man, that was a bit mean.”

“I know, that was dumb, okay? I know… But now I’m afraid he will be too out of it during the whole thing and he’ll regret it when it’s over.”

Yukhei listens and doesn’t judge. He doesn’t even make Mark feel bad for pushing him in the dirt. He just takes up his sword and challenges Mark again and lets Mark charge against him, blunt blade versus blunt blade, their feet slipping on the swampy ground, again and again and again, until a servant comes looking for them, telling Mark that the palace physician wants to talk to him.

 

❃

 

The only thing that comforts Mark on his way to the office of the physician is that it’s not heat. It shouldn’t be heat, because Mark can’t feel it. But Mark can’t feel anything right now, the rain tampering with his sense of smell as the distance between Donghyuck and himself becomes liquid and heavy, drowning their bond in the gurgling of water trickling down the stone walls. Donghyuck’s presence, usually so boisterous and wild, a constant tease at the edge of Mark’s attention span, is now nothing more than a confused, weak echo, languishing somewhere in their room, the only place where Mark would like to be now.

He knocks.

“Come in.”

“How is he?” Mark asks, even before closing the door.

The physician, a wrinkly old man that goes by the name of Lee Jaeho, who was already old when the queen first arrived at the palace to marry Mark’s father, looks at the Crown Prince from under his round spectacles and clears his throat.

“Have a seat, Your Highness.”

“How is he?” Mark finds himself asking again, not caring that it sounds a little desperate, even to his own ears – at this point, he's just tempted to go back to their room and check by himself. The physician gestures towards the armchair again.

“The Prince Consort is sleeping. He is fine. He has a cold, not a terminal disease. You can stop acting like I just went there to find the cause of his death.”

“A cold?” babbles Mark, finally sitting on the edge of the armchair, in front of a large oak desk.

“Yes,” says the physician, raising his eyebrows, “a cold. That seasonal sickness you get when you play in the water and then spend the rest of the day in damp clothes. This sudden weather change didn’t help. That poor little summer bird, he's not used to our autumn rains, isn’t he? But you don’t have to worry, he already took his medication and he will be fine in a couple of hours.”

“He’s not going into heat?” Mark blurts out. He resists the urge to cover his own mouth like a misspoken child.

The physician takes his glasses off and sighs, rubbing the wrinkle between his eyes.

“To the disappointment of the whole court and my biggest relief, the Prince Consort is not going into heat.”

Mark lets himself fall back into the chair. He takes a moment to let the words sink in. Oh.

“Why is it a relief?” he asks, his voice low.

The old man crosses his arms and leans back, looking at Mark. “Well, first because it would be very inconvenient and very dangerous to have the Prince Consort going into heat while he is also sick. Heats can be quite long and debilitating endeavors. First heats, especially, are bound to be quite irregular and unpredictable, and I’m afraid your husband presented very late and his body is still in the middle of adapting to the changes of his new status. Second,” he says, his voice growing sharper, “because first heatsex is one of the most traumatic and violent events in the life of an Omega and it would be better if the Prince Consort’s first approach to intimacy with you did not happen through it.”

Mark looks down, feeling extremely exposed in front of the eyes of the physician.

“It won’t,” he says, softly. “That was never the plan, but I understand your concerns.”

He bows curtly, feeling humiliated at being told what to do like an inexperienced child, still too green and wet behind the ears to get married. More than that, he’s kind of starting to feel angry. He really does understand the concerns of the physician, but at the same time… Donghyuck is his mate. His husband. And yet, since the moment they married, since their two countries tied them together for the rest of their lives, everyone has deemed appropriate to tell Mark exactly what he needs to do with Donghyuck – to Donghyuck – multiple times and in great details. (They want the Southern Omega to be claimed, thoroughly fucked and bred, filled with children of the Vale – possibly before the new year so that the babies can be born at the beginning of summer, said Lord Kwon this morning over breakfast, wouldn’t that be lovely? and Mark had to restrain himself from punching him in the face because it doesn’t matter what Lord Kwon wants, what any of them want. The Southern Omega, Donghyuck, does not belong to them, and they have no right over him. Only Mark does, even if he doesn’t know what to do with his rights over Donghyuck most of the times.)

The frustration must be evident on his face, because Lee Jaeho slips his glasses back on his face and clears his voice, forcing Mark to look at him.

“I cannot know what is going on between you and your mate, but I am not a fool, Minhyung, nor I am your enemy. I brought you into this world, nineteen years ago, and I didn’t do it to watch you ruin your marriage like this. Your husband is a kind boy, and he needs you to look after him.”

 _My husband hates me,_ thinks Mark. _And he doesn’t know what he wants, much less what he needs. Neither do I._

He doesn’t say anything, just looks down again, and the silence between them seem to weight on time, making the moment unnecessarily long and awkward, until the physician closes his eyes, looking too tired for this.

“Look at this!” he grumbles. “I told your father that they should have let the two of you meet and talk before the wedding, just like the queen has consistently been telling him there’s no need to rush you two to have a child now, but when has the king ever listened to an Omega in his life?”

Mark nods, confused by the sudden shift of pace in the conversation, not really knowing what to answer. He can only stare as the physician gets up and starts rummaging among the drawers on the wall.

“You talked to my father about Donghyuck?”

“I’ve been taking care of that boy’s education since he arrived in the palace knowing absolutely nothing about being an Omega, Your Highness, of course I talked to the king. If only he had listened to me, instead of trusting the Alphas of the Small Council… A bunch of morons, that’s what they are. Don’t look at me like that, I’m old enough to say what I want without any fear.”

The man grumbles some more, turning back to the giant built-in drawer that contains most of the herbs and ointments in thr palace.

“Can I ask you something?” Mark dares, receiving a soft hum and a hand gesture to encourage him to talk.

“Donghyuck,” he starts, following the figure of the old man as he climbs on the ladder to reach the tallest row of the cabinet. “said he feels pain, sometimes.”

“Yes, I am aware. He told me weeks ago, when he experienced the first symptoms. In the islands they call it Longing, but it’s a lot less common here in the Vale because people don’t like to talk about it, so it doesn’t really have a name. It’s a form of separation anxiety caused by the lack of physical contact with your mate.”

Mark nods. “Yeah, I suspected it, but thank you for the clarification.”

“It might also have been one of the causes of your husband’s sudden seasonal cold. It makes the body weaker, more vulnerable to external agents. Of course, I don’t need to tell you what you need to do to alleviate the symptoms, don’t I?”

Mark bites at the inside of his mouth and nods, fighting back a copious blush.

“I appreciate what you have done, Your Highness. No matter how much your mate was insulted by it, he wasn’t in any way ready to take a knot the day of his marriage, and not everyone would have used him the same care. Not in a political marriage like yours, I’m afraid. However, as much as you might want to go slow, the Prince Consort’s heat will not wait until either of you are ready, so I strongly recommend you to talk about it with him.”

The old man carefully climbs down the ladder, carrying a small vial in his left hand. He holds it towards Mark, for him to take.

“This is the Prince Consort’s favorite scented oil. Draw him a bath or use it in any way you want.” At this point, Mark doesn’t think he will ever be able to look at Lee Jaeho in the face again, but he still takes the vial. “Now go, you should be with him when he wakes up. He will look for his Alpha and he will feel lost if you’re not there.”

The physician stops him when he’s at the door.

“Mating is not a duty, Your Highness. It’s an act of trust.”

“And what do I do if my mate doesn’t trust me?”

Lee Jaeho, who was once, a long time ago, an Omega, who’s still an Omega even after the death of his mate in the war against the Empire more than twenty-five years ago, flashes Mark a cryptic smile.

“You trust him first.”

 

❃

 

Mark can feel it when Donghyuck wakes up, a wave of distress spreading through the winding staircase, making all the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He climbs the stairs as fast as he can, skipping three steps with every stride, and he knows Donghyuck can feel him too because when he finally reaches the door all he can smell is his recalcitrant relief.

Donghyuck is standing in front of the window of the reading room, sweaty and dishevelled and flushed with fever all over. He’s completely naked except for one of Mark’s furs – the grey wolf pelt, from his coming of age ceremony – sloped awkwardly around his shoulders. The look he sends Mark when he opens the door is helpless and not completely lucid.

“What are you doing here?” Mark murmurs, gesturing for him to come closer, and for once Donghyuck obeys, for once, unsteadily making his way over until he crashes against Mark’s chest, barely keeping himself up.

“Feel better?”

“Everything sucks.”

Mark chuckles and Donghyuck groans, too weak to do anything more than that. His legs wobble and Mark cradles an arm around his waist.

“You should be in bed… You’re burning up.”

“Fuck the bed. I hate it. A maid came while the doctor was visiting me and changed all the sheets and now it smells too much like outside, I hate it.”

Mark puts a hand on his forehead, ignoring the way Donghyuck nuzzles against the coolness of his palm. The fever must be flaring up one last time before it goes down and disappears.

“Come on,” he says. “The physician said you’re going to be fine soon. Let’s get you to lie down a little.”

Donghyuck doesn’t protest as Mark drags him to their bedroom, only to stop at the entrance to look at the mess on their bed. It seems like every single article of clothing has been moved from the wooden chests to the bed, carefully spread on the mattress until it’s covered in their scent.

“Is that your idea of nesting?”

It's pretty different from what Mark knows about nesting. Donghyuck is already too red to blush some more, but he musters the strength to glare at Mark.

“Not another word,” he murmurs, and he sounds pretty done already so Mark doesn’t add anything else. He just clears a spot for the two of them on the bed and stares shamelessly as Donghyuck lets the pelt slide down his shoulders and on the floor. Mark drinks in the sight of his flushed, lean chest, the constellation of moles that starts on his cheek and ends on his neck, the Little Dipper, and the other one, the secret one that only Mark can see – one mole high, right under his left collarbone, one under his right nipple and one on his hip. Vega, Deneb and Altair, the summer triangle, the brightest stars in the summer night, terribly appropriate for someone like Donghyuck.

“Get in,” Mark whispers, curtly, trying not to sound too breathless and failing. He hears the shuffle of fabric as Donghyuck slips under the covers, and he quickly undresses, joining him.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Donghyuck murmurs. He doesn’t wrap himself around Mark like he usually does at night, just curls up against him, his forehead burning against Mark’s bicep. It’s Mark who turns towards him and pulls him closer, and Donghyuck resists, for a split moment that has Mark hesitating as well, but soon gives up, arms coming up to cling onto Mark’s shoulders with everything he has. He smells like Mark's pelt - the pelt of the wolf he battled to prove his status as an Alpha, and Mark's heart does a somersault when he feels it because it means Donghyuck smells like Mark.

“I cleared my schedule," Mark mumbles. "You’re sick.”

Donghyuck doesn’t complain when Mark starts stroking his hair, just lets his eyelashes flutter closed.

“You’ll catch it too if you stay here.”

“At least I won’t have to sit in the Council anymore. I hate it. Everyone is on edge because of the rain. The lords are especially fastidious, because it’s extremely inconvenient to travel with this weather, but since they have to do it in order to talk to the royal family they never fail to make us feel as frustrated as they feel.”

“Sucks to be you,” Donghyuck says, sucking in a sharp breath when Mark pulls on his hair in retaliation.

He looks up with a pout, his brows furrowed and his cheeks full, a little angry and a little confused, and Mark just wanted to tease him a little, but now he finds himself unable to look away, mesmerized. The last coils of fever look so alluring on Donghyuck. They make him look softer, unguarded, more Omega than Mark has ever seen him. He wonders, somewhere in the corner of his mind, if this is how Donghyuck will look like when he’s in heat. He wonders, but he doesn’t really follow the train of that thought, because Donghyuck’s tongue comes out to wet his lips and Mark can’t help but chase the movement hungrily with his eyes. This wasn’t a good idea, he realizes, because they’re both naked and Donghyuck should rest, but Mark wants, he wants.

His hand moves from Donghyuck’s hair to the side of his face, cradling his jaw and forcing his face up, so that Mark can see him better. His lips are still shining slightly, a little slick, and Mark feels his cock slowly filling up but he doesn’t care - today he doesn't seem to care. His thumb traces Donghyuck’s bottom lip, tapping it slowly, until it falls open, just for him, and Donghyuck’s eyes widen some more, even more, until he’s all eyes, all big, dark eyes, staring at Mark with wonder and embarrassment and arousal and – and then he narrows them, pushing back against Mark.

“What did he tell you?”

“What?”

The lack of his warmth hits Mark like a slap. He shivers and instinctively tries to shuffle closer, but Donghyuck keeps him away with a hand on his chest.

“The doctor, the… physician, what did he tell you?”

“That you have a cold- Ouch, can you please calm down?” Mark seizes one of Donghyuck’s wrists before the other boy can slap his chest again but he can’t stop the other hand from dragging his nails on his forearm. It hurts, but he can feel his cock twitch at the same time.

“Are you trying to seduce me? Is that what… is it because I fell sick? Do you pity me that much?”

“Donghyuck, I swear to the goddess, I have no idea what you’re talking about and I’m starting to get worried that the fever has gotten to your head. Can you please, _please_ tell me what you mean, for once? Or I’m leaving. I’m leaving because you’re fucking impossible and I…”

He tries to jerk back – because he can’t, because Donghyuck is hot and then cold and then hot again, and he’s giving him third degree burns – but Donghyuck’s fingers close around his forearm like a vice.

“Wait,” Donghyuck tries, breathless, then stops, shakes his head in a physical attempt to clear it enough to talk. “The physician, he said that I’m sick because of you. Because you’re not doing your duty. So I…”

“Then I should be doing my duty, shouldn’t I? So that you can feel better!”

Donghyuck sniffles, so angry, so angry. He looks a little like he’d slap Mark again but he’s too afraid of Mark leaving as soon as he lets go of his arm to actually do it.

“How can you be so insensitive? You said it first, during our wedding night… I was ready to do my duty, and you said the day you would fuck me it wouldn’t be for duty, didn’t you say that? So how come you can… you can be stuck up and prudish and you can say you won’t do anything unless I _want_ to be with you, but when it comes to fucking me, you always say it’s a duty for you? Don’t I deserve someone who _wants_ me too? You’re such an asshole Minhyung, I can’t believe you always fool me into thinking you might have grown up into a decent person, just to end up being the asshole you’ve always been when we were children, I really can’t-”

Mark covers his mouth with his palm to make him stop, because apparently once Donghyuck starts he’s like a flooding river, there’s just… so much, too much. This is the most he’s talked to Mark in… ever. He called him Minhyung, he called him-

“You think… I’m trying to seduce you because it’s my duty?”

Donghyuck bites on his palm and nods, murderous and afraid and relieved at the same time. He must have held onto this secret since the beginning, stubbornly, incoherently even, but consistently. Mark wants to draw back, put some space between them and think – there’s so much to think about – but he’s afraid of letting Donghyuck go, he’s afraid of losing this moment like he lost all the others. (He called him Minhyung, like they were children, and now they’re not, and Mark wants him bad.)

“Why would you even think anything like that?” he asks in a tense, low exhale, and Donghyuck scoffs and smacks his lips. (Mark wants him so, _so_ bad.)

“I know I’m not like most Omegas,” Donghyuck says, unaware of Mark’s inner turmoil. “They told me. I presented too late, and my body had already developed too much to change back into something more… typical for my status. I’m not pretty like an Omega and I’m not soft like an Omega and I can’t nest and I still want to stick a sword between your ribs every time you make that stupid holier-than-thou face, as if dealing with me is such a hassle and you need an award of something for being the most bare minimum husband in the world. I want to punch you in the face so bad, I swear, because you suck and I hate that I have to settle for you, but if you think I’ll allow you to fuck me just so you can report from duty to your father then you’re solely mistaken. Ugly Omega or not, I still have my pr-”

Mark doesn’t know how much Donghyuck has talked when his voice finally breaks through the fog of confusion and arousal in his head. He only knows that Donghyuck has talked too much and of things he doesn’t really understand. What an extraordinary brand of fools, the both of them are. He kicks the blanket away and pushes his hips forward, rolling Donghyuck on his back and taking his breath and voice away in a rustle of tangled fabric. He pins him down, flat on the mattress, his wrists trapped at the side of his head like that day at the lake, only this time Mark’s cock is hard, shameless and insistent, trapped between his body and Donghyuck’s, and Mark’s scent is out in full force, the way he never allows it to be – the way it's not proper to be, here in the Vale.

Mark ruts down, lets Donghyuck feel all of it. The weight of his cock against Donghyuck's impossibly hot skin. The cold, stubborn nervousness of his fingers when they let go of Donghyuck's wrists to slide down his body, finally tightening on his hips, hungry for the softness of his thighs. The indecent way his eyes linger on Donghyuck’s collarbones, nipples, his navel, the curve of his cock, teasing him without even having to touch him until Donghyuck’s pheromones are staining the air, his scent braiding itself with Mark’s. And the air is thick and impossibly heavy, and it’s like they’re breathing sex, and there’s no space for gods or goddesses in this bed, and Mark wants Donghyuck.

“You're selling yourself short, if you think it would be duty.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Yes, next chapter will be rated again)
> 
> Let's all thank @/yaori94 for blessing us and drawing [this absolutely breathtaking Donghyuck](https://twitter.com/yaori94/status/1144652690246504454) from this chapter. Please visit her account, she deserves the world.  
> (Also please, as a personal favor, if you want to leave a comment don't do it on curiouscat, leave it here. If I receive a comment to a fic on cc or and I reply, that comment will be buried under other answers in a couple of days and I'll most likely never see it again. And if I don't reply to keep it stored in my inbox I can't communicate with my readers. I truly appreciate all the comments I receive, but the reason we all leave comments is to support authors, and when I'm in need of support or motivation I come to read the comments here. So if you have something to say about the fic and want your words to be my motivation please comment here.  
> I'm sorry that I need to ask this, but it's not been a nice couple of days and I need all the motivation I can hoard. I will still reply to any cc I receive and I'll still cherish every comment whether it's on ao3 or cc, don't worry ~ Thank you for reading until the end, not all heroes wear capes.)


	7. vii. all my nights taste like gold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!  
> I usually update on Saturday but I got super confused with the days because I spent the whole week studying and I somehow fooled myself into thinking the week was already over, so I announced on Twitter I would update today so here I am. Next week I'll update o Saturday again, don't get used to the early updates :o  
> I'm always nervous when it comes to rated content but my test readers reacted very positively to this (I believe C. called my filthiest content so far? lol) so I really hope you can enjoy. As usual, the chapter is mostly unbetaed so if there are mistakes I'll just edit them later.  
> Also, if you're curious about technical details regarding the au you can drop your questions in the comments. I received some pretty interesting questions in chapter 6 and I answered, so if you're curious you can also check previous comments and replies, but even if you don't have time to do that you can just ask me and I'll make sure to answer (unless I think it's too much of a spoiler).  
> Thank you again for all the support, I said it personally to each and every of you, but you're not only amazing readers but amazing people and your words of support made me feel very warm during a very bad couple of days.  
> I'll stop polluting the notes with cheesiness and leave you to the fic!  
> Enjoy ♥
> 
> \- [chapter title insp](https://youtu.be/SHkSa0zWTDE)

Donghyuck’s fingers are too hot, his breath is too hot, his lips are definitely too hot, and Mark feels like a princess trapped in a tower while the dragon burns everything around him.

He moans, low and scratchy, and the pressure surrounding him, driving him mad, comes loose, just enough for his overdriven mind to feel Donghyuck’s chuckle around his cock. He cards his fingers in Donghyuck’s hair, to push him down, wanting nothing more than to feel his lips stretching around his girth again, but Donghyuck ignores his nudging to lick a wet stripe from the base to the tip before he pulls back, staring at Mark with hooded, deliciously smug eyes.

“I thought you were a virgin,” Mark dumbly splutters, his heart in his throat, his dick in front of Donghyuck's shiny lips.

“I’ve never had sex, but I’ve sucked Jeno’s dick,” Donghyuck answers, absent-mindedly, his tongue peeking at the corner of his mouth as he wraps his hands around Mark and tugs.

Mark closes his eyes, both from the stimulation and the mental image of Donghyuck in knees in front of his advisor and best friend.

“He also sucked mine, more than once.”

Mark groans. “I’m having him exiled, watch me.”

“Oh, I am watching you. The only thing you’re going to do now is sit back and be a fucking good boy, Your Highness.”

Mark’s entire body jerks a little at that, and he doesn’t need to open his eyes to feel the smugness radiating from Donghyuck. “Is that a kink, really? Your Highness?”

“I’d like it more if you called me my name,” he confesses, a rare moment of honesty, and Donghyuck blinks.

“Mark? Minhyung?”

_Yes._

Mark’s cock twitches in Donghyuck’s hand and he throws his head back, eyes squeezed shut, feeling the need to come build in his stomach. Not yet, it’s still too early to finish like this, when they’ve just barely started, but everything Donghyuck does feels like it’s too much, like it’s the last thing Mark’s body is going to endure before he explodes.

“Minhyung?” Donghyuck repeats again, wicked, and Mark wants to pull him up and kiss him, see if he tastes of his cock or of his own birth name, but then Donghyuck is diving down again, smiling against the tip of Mark’s cock for a moment, so smug, so pleased with himself.

Mark pulls on his hair, not hard, just enough to make Donghyuck look up at him.

“I’m gonna come on your stupid face,” he threatens, and something shines in Donghyuck’s eyes, something that feels oddly like amusement, maybe pride.

“Not if I leave you hanging.”

Mark considers it. “If you dare, I’m going to jerk off until I come on your face. And when we fuck, I’ll be so bad at it you won’t even get to come.”

Donghyuck lets out a soft sound, maybe a hum, maybe a laugh, and wraps his lips around the tips of Mark’s cock, not sucking yet, just applying pressure, making Mark squirm in anticipation. Light dances on his face, and the flames crackling lazily in the giant fireplace of their room cast long, curly shadows on his cheekbones, purple against bronze-that-turns-gold, sunkissed. His eyelashes flutter, like fairy wings, and his lips stretch around Mark, puffy and soft, and his mouth is wet, and hot, and he is very pretty like this.

He doesn’t go far, not for lack of experience but for the simple joy of being a tease. Mark considers riling him up, challenging him, just to see how far he can go, but then remembers Donghyuck is still recovering from a cold – a cold which, as some point, Mark should have already caught six times – and his throat must still hurt. A pity, maybe next time. The only thing he can do now is reach for Donghyuck’s right hand where it’s clamped on his hip to keep him from bucking in Donghyuck’s mouth, lace their fingers together, and lead them to his crotch, pressing against the base of his cock until Donghyuck takes the hint and wraps his palm around it, covering what his mouth doesn’t reach.

“Yes,” babbles Mark, “come on.”

He feels light-headed and full of sparkles, all twirling in his body and bumping against his skin from inside, and converging to his core where the fire builds, and builds, and builds, like a little red star. Donghyuck swallows him a little deeper, lets Mark’s hand set the pace of his own on his dick, a little faster and rougher, the way he likes it best, and it’s been so long since jerking off resulted in anything more than a rushed, knotless orgasm, but this time Mark can feel the knot starting to swell and he groans, low in his throat, so close.

Donghyuck can feel it too, the bulge at the base of Mark’s cock, fattening under his fingers, hardening, and Mark’s scent heaves around them, Donghyuck’s echoing it faintly.

Donghyuck lets go of Mark’s cock with a wet pop and carelessly cleans the mess of drool and precome at his chin and at the corner of his lips with the back of his wrist. He stares at Mark’s knot, eyes wide, nostrils flaring as he breathes Mark’s scent deep and slow. It’s the first time he can sense it like this, unrestrained, wild, and it’s only because of the medication still running in his body that he can resist its pull and not roll on his belly to present in front of his Alpha. He blinks, a little unfocused – not from the fever, no, that subsided, somewhere between letting Mark rut against him like a horny teenager and deciding it was time to get down on his knees and see what his husband was made of. His tongue darts outside to lick his lips, tasting Mark’s precome on them. It’s his first time seeing a knot, of this Mark is sure, if not for the way he looks, for the first time today, unsure of what to do, and a little mesmerized.

“Can I touch it?” he asks, slowly, almost nervously, and Mark almost comes on the spot from the relief as he frantically nods yes, yes, _yes_. He should wait, because if he grows his knot now he won’t be able to get hard again for the whole day, and he really, really wants to fuck Donghyuck, but at the same time he can’t wait. He can’t say no, not to this Donghyuck.

“Please yes,” he pleads instead, and it satisfies Donghyuck, to see him come undone, to see him beg, but Mark could not care less. Donghyuck’s touch is hesitant, featherlight, and focused nevertheless.

“Can this even fit inside me?” he murmurs, without taking his eyes off Mark’s burgeoning, almost full knot.

“We’ll make it fit,” Mark says, exhales, the mere image steering him towards the end of the journey, so close, so close, he’s so ready to rut against Donghyuck’s hand like a dog if he can get to come, and he cards a hand through Donghyuck’s hair, low, almost on his nape, tugging him down again. “Please,” he begs, almost delirious.

Donghyuck seems to understand, because he leans down and mouths at the knot, his fingers playing with the head of Mark’s cock while his other hand jerks him fast and slick, and Mark feels it come like a scratch deep within his core, searing hot, building in intensity until it’s almost painful. Donghyuck tugs him once, twice, whispers, “Come on, Minhyung,” before he lays his tongue flat against the sensitive, swollen, overheated skin of the knot, and something screeches in Mark’s head, the sound of his bones rattling as he burns like a comet against thin air, fighting gravity for its right to free fall, and he comes, and comes, and _comes_ – worse than when he’s in rut, worse than his first rut – squirting on Donghyuck’s red lips and neck and on his thin, curly lashes and on his spun gold hair, until he smells like Mark and he tastes like Mark and he’s Mark’s, and yet he still smiles like he’s the one who owns Mark instead.

 

❃

 

Mark feels darkness grow behind the veil of his eyelids, beyond the white noise in his ears, darkness grows and lays her hands on the heaviness curled on Mark’s chest – a warm, solid weight that smells like blonde caramel and golden flowers, and a little like Mark – until the only light in the room is the flicker of the flames in the fireplace, the only sound his and Donghyuck’s breathing combined.

The door creaks open and Donghyuck shuffles, propping himself up in a creaking of wrinkled bedsheets only to hiss a curt, “Get out!” that has the door slamming close again. Mark forces his eyes open to the ghost of flames dancing on the ceiling and his husband staring at him, burnt blonde strands falling on his face messily, sticking up a little where Mark held onto them to keep Donghyuck’s head in place while he came undone on his face.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi,” Donghyuck says back, and the world slowly recalibrates itself around them, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle trying to come together even though so many of them are still missing. The empty spaces in the picture are filled by awkward silence, by Mark staring at Donghyuck and failing to grasp how he’s supposed to act with him now that the fog of arousal has gone and he’s still the same Donghyuck he was before, the only difference being that his mouth has been on Mark long enough to make him come. And Donghyuck, well, he waits, like he always does, for Mark to make his move. Donghyuck only attacks first when he’s certain to strike at the heart.

“What time is it?” Mark asks, in the end, looking outside and meeting only the night and the faint lights of the opposite towers, the even fainter light of the city in the distance. “Did we miss dinner?”

“Probably. Someone knocked at the door earlier,” – Mark totally didn’t hear that – “and then one of the maids tried to come in and she woke you up,” – oh, he did hear that – “so I guess we’re fashionably late for dinner.”

“Mh,” mumbles Mark. Fuck dinner.

“Should we go?” Donghyuck asks, already trying to get up. Mark’s hand sneak around his hips, pulling him back down, flush around his navel, Donghyuck’s soft cock trapped between them, – the friction making him squirm.

“Yeah, and have the whole palace stare at us like we just had sex?”

“We did just have sex, Your Highness.”

More or less, Mark thinks. Not enough for the palace to finally shut up and leave the both of them alone. Not that they haven’t tried this time, but Donghyuck was still too dizzy from the medication to feel any kind of arousal. Well, Mark cannot complain anyway. It was Donghyuck, with his lips and his hands and his devilish face, and it was amazing, and Mark was the only one who came, sure, but Donghyuck looked even more pleased than he was. Knowing he made his husband happy is enough. Fuck the rest of the palace, Mark will fuck Donghyuck when he wants to and because he wants to, not because they want him to.

For now, he follows the graceful bow of Donghyuck’s spine with his fingers, counting the bumps one by one, before he smirks.

“Is that what you do, in the islands? You have sex and then saunter around half-naked to show everyone how much you enjoyed it?”

Donghyuck scoffs. “Sometimes we have sex directly in front of everyone, that’s how shameless we are.”

Oh, Donghyuck must think he’s hilarious.

“That’s a lot to unpack,” answers Mark, playing along. “You do know we can’t do that here, right?”

Donghyuck bats his eyelashes and curls a hand around Mark’s neck. “And why not? Too racy for your prudish Vale court?”

Mark scoots backwards and tugs Donghyuck with him, pulling him a little higher on his chest, a little closer, until he can comfortable link his fingers behind Donghyuck’s back, and if Donghyuck were to angle his head right they’d be at the right distance for a kiss.

“Not really,” Mark answers, blowing the answer in Donghyuck’s face, “but then I would have to kill an inconvenient amount of people. No one but me can see you like this.”

Something simmers under the surface of Donghyuck’s eyes, something sweltering and lurid, like a flash of naked skin showed by mistake during the hottest day of summer, something that should not be seen by anyone and, as quick as it appears, needs to be hastily covered. Mark doesn’t like Donghyuck covered, though. He likes him naked, skin on skin, his weight just shy of uncomfortable on top of Mark’s chest and navel, legs intertwined. Almost the right distance for a kiss.

And maybe it’s the exhaustion, the weariness of worrying about his mate, feeling him languish on the other side of an invisible silk thread that sometimes closes around their necks, like a noose, and sometimes around their fingers, like a ring. Maybe it’s the orgasm that filled Mark’s head with cotton and dried flowers – all of them wild and smelling like Donghyuck, smelling like glory and ruin and _mine_. Maybe Donghyuck is right, Mark is hopeless and a little foolish – _Who would’ve told you were such a gross, hopeless romantic. It’s a pity it’s all wasted on me. We’re never going to fall in love, after all, you and I,_ murmurs Donghyuck in Mark’s head, and Mark really hopes his mate is not always right, because he knows himself and it’s true, he is hopeless – _hopeful_ – and a little foolish.

Since he was young, Mark has always been a boy of sparse, violent delights. Most of his existence has unfolded slowly, obediently, dully. He has learnt not to grow close to anyone or anything because he’s a prince, and a prince must be ready to sacrifice everything for his country. And yet, even a prince is, before a prince, a man, and men have feelings. And it takes a long time for Mark to develop feelings, to grow fond of something to the point of being conscious of it – to find veins of gold hidden in the cracks of his perfect, pristine, obedient life – and when it happens, when he finds something worth loving, Mark loves it with his whole heart.

Right now, as he looks at Donghyuck’s disheveled appearance, his golden hair, golden skin, that sliver of vulnerability that he never showed Mark before – something that child Mark, barely teenage Mark, angry, confused, heart-at-storm Mark would have died to see on his face, just so he could take advantage of it – he feels, he feels… He feels something taking shape inside his chest, a restlessness, a need, a want that is warm and viscous and trickles down his lungs making it difficult to breathe.

Mark leans up, hands framing Donghyuck’s face, his thumb pressing on the plumpness of Donghyuck’s bottom lip, feeling Donghyuck’s moist, shaky breath against his skin. They’ve never kissed before, but Mark has spent hours fantasizing about how Donghyuck must taste like, and now he wants it so hard he’s choking on it, like a bee drowning on honey, blissfully, and he wants to drag Donghyuck down with him too – but how, how can he do it, when Donghyuck is the honey?

But then Donghyuck jerks away, body shrinking inside his own skin as he turns his head to the side barely in time for Mark’s lips to land on his cheek instead. It’s sloppy and awkward and a little desperate, and Mark wants to take his actions back, shuffle them a little, then tidy them up again, one after another, neatly, calmly, but Donghyuck is already drawing back and flopping on the bed next to him. Not too far away, but not as close, eyes fixed on the ceiling.

“What are you doing, Your Highness?” he asks, and he doesn’t sound angry like Mark expected but shaky, strained.

“Mark.”

Mark, not Minhyung, because Minhyung belongs to whispers and gasps and wet moans, and Mark doesn’t want to bring that name into this conversation. He has a feeling that it won’t be a nice one.

Donghyuck looks like he wants to resist, to stubbornly deny Mark this kindness, but he can probably still taste Mark on the back of his throat and maybe that’s why he gives up.

“Mark, then. That was… What were you trying to do?”

“Kissing you? I didn’t think you’d complain after everything else we did.”

Donghyuck shakes his head. “No, that wasn’t you kissing me in the middle of sex. That was… that was intimate.”

“I'm trying,” Mark answers, meekly. _Someone has to._

Donghyuck doesn’t say anything, just wait for Mark to go on, but Mark doesn’t really know what to say now that the bubble of contentment between them has popped.

“You know,” Mark starts again after a while, kind of _non sequitur_ but not really. “Every couple, even arranged ones, usually get to have a courting period, a few months or even years sometimes, to know each other better, to… to get used to each other, you know? But we didn't. I had it with your sister, you probably had it with your fiancé, but then we ended up marrying each other.”

“And?”

“And I don't know anything about you.”

No, that’s wrong, Mark knows many things about Donghyuck, all clashing with each other and confusing him even more. What Mark doesn’t know is. What Donghyuck likes, what he doesn’t like. His dreams, his passions, his delights. His fears. Who broke his heart so bad that he doesn’t believe in love. Where would he want to go, if he was free. All the missing pieces of the puzzle that Donghyuck has stolen away and hidden, for no one to touch. Mark wants to touch them, he wants to own them – not steal them, no, he wants Donghyuck to surrender them. Like a gift, like an act of trust.

“I want to know more about you, Donghyuck.” _I want us to be more than this._

“There's really nothing to know,” says Donghyuck, bluntly.

“Let me be the judge of that.”

Donghyuck angles himself towards Mark again, but without touching him, his whole body tense and ready to fight or flight. He doesn’t even need a weapon when he’s like this, not when he has himself, not when Mark would let him hit wherever he wants if that’s what Donghyuck needs – _only for today, don’t fight him,_ he tells himself, _but don’t let him destroy you either._

“And then after you'll have known me, what will you have gained? People do the whole courting thing to fall in love, but I thought we had established that wasn't our case.”

“Why?”

Donghyuck draws even further back. “I don’t want to fall in love. And I don’t want to fall in love with you, of all people.”

It hurts, but it wasn’t said to hurt Mark. Donghyuck is looking at him warily, gauging his reaction, and there isn’t any trace of that wounded cruelty that Mark knows him to be capable of. He’s just stating a simple fact. (Maybe that’s why it hurts so much. Anger is strong and torbid and bloody, you can simmer it until it thickens enough to become something else, and the final result can be hate but it can also be love. But Donghyuck isn’t angry. Donghyuck is scared instead, and Mark, as usual, doesn’t understand.)

“And what if it's not love? We don’t have to live of absolutes, Donghyuck, but we have to live. We have to live together for a long time.”

“And what would you want it to be? What could you be to me, Mark?”

There are many things Mark would want from this relationship. Respect. Familiarity. Comfort. Support. Intimacy. Friendship.

“We could be friends, first.”

Mark doesn’t miss the flicker of anger, or annoyance, or frustration, or maybe all of them, in Donghyuck’s demeanor – it flares through his body like a wave, a shiver he needs to shake off, leaving behind the faintest residual itch, the ghost of a sting on the skin.

“Oh, this one takes the cake. You had years to be friends with me and you didn't, so why now?”

“Because… because I married you? What kind of question is that?”

Donghyuck’s eyes narrow, slithers of anger now. Mark would be worried, in any other situation he would be worried, but he knows Donghyuck won’t run away from their bed. He would have nowhere else to go. He has to stay and he has to confront Mark. He has to let Mark in, at least here. There’s no space for gods or goddesses in their bed. There’s no space for anything but them.

“You are digging your own grave, Your Highness,” Donghyuck hisses, and it sounds both angry and languid at the same time.

“If I do, will you lie in it with me?” Mark asks. Like the kings of the empire, buried with their mates, to be together forever.

But Donghyuck doesn’t want forever, he only seems to want now, now, _now_ , as he climbs on Mark again, his scent thick and syrupy again, pouring out in sloppy waves of arousal.

“There’s only one way I want to lie with you now,” he murmurs, raking his nails over Mark’s chest in a way that makes him wince as he feels Donghyuck’s cock hardening against his belly.

 _Oh, no, you don’t. You can’t use sex as an escape route just because we’re talking about something that makes you uncomfortable, Donghyuck._ Mark glares at him, ready to call him out, but Donghyuck puts a finger to his mouth before he can.

“Don’t make things complicated Mark. We don’t have to love each other, we don’t even have to be friends. We just have to be together, you and I. That’s what I want- that’s what I need now. Can you do that for me?”

 _What if I want more?_ , Mark almost says, but Donghyuck is offering him his hand and Mark can only take it, like a lifeline in the middle of the sea. Donghyuck intertwines their fingers together and leads Mark’s hand to his belly, and lower, lower, to his semi-hard cock.

Mark hesitates and Donghyuck rolls his hip down, all dry, electric friction.

“Minhyung,” Donghyuck whines, and Mark knows he’s being manipulated, but Donghyuck is warm and wet and all his _now_ , and forever is too far away from now.

“Come here,” he says, only.

 

❃

 

“You’re so quiet,” Mark whispers, barely audible against the tiled walls of the large, empty pool. He looks up at Donghyuck, all flushed and wet and gasping against his fist, and he stills his hand on Donghyuck’s cock to pull Donghyuck’s hand away from his lips. “I want to hear you.”

“Fuck you,” Donghyuck says, voice breaking at the end when Mark moves his fingers just right inside him.

“I never thought you would be like this,” Mark continues, ignoring Donghyuck’s answer to spread his legs a little wider. It’s useless because every time his finger scrape a little deeper in him, Donghyuck’s thighs try to close again around him. “Makes me wonder how loud you will be during your heat.”

Donghyuck starts breathing a little louder, a little deeper, after that, his gaze unfocused and glossy.

It took a lot, to make him fall apart like this. The only other time they did this, Donghyuck had already been fingering himself for some time, and Mark had only led the pace, letting Donghyuck work himself to his own ending. It was familiar, unrushed, Donghyuck clearly very much aware of what his body did and did not like. This time, Mark does it himself, patiently, stubbornly, fingering Donghyuck with the care of someone doing this for the first time, stroking his cock only to keep him interested, not to get him off.

Donghyuck quivers, trembles, bites his lips to keep quiet and looks at Mark like he wants to kill him for being so slow, but Mark has all the time in the world tonight. He’s already came, after all, his knot pulsing and growing against nothing, wasted, and he won’t be able to do it twice, not without being in a rut or triggered by Donghyuck’s heat. So he takes his time to focus on Donghyuck instead, to slowly, painfully open him up, using the flares in his scent as a compass to find his prostate and make him tighten on his fingers.

“We won’t need this, when your heat comes,” Mark whispers. “You’ll be dripping wet. I’m gonna slide inside without a hitch.”

Donghyuck breathes through his nose, throwing his head back with a full body shiver at the pang of pleasure that courses through him.

“Oh,” he pants, a little derisive, maybe too derisive for a man who’s trying to keep himself from begging for the last ten minutes, “and what do you know about heats?”

He doesn’t know, but Mark fucked an Omega in heat, once. A concubine from a very expensive, very trusted pleasure house, the kind of place where the lords of the kingdom go to empty their balls when their mates are pregnant. Or when they have enough heirs and no desire to split the family fortune further. He knows his father never visited the place, but he had one of the girls coming to the palace for his ruts. His mother cares very little about it. For what Mark knows of her, she probably pities the poor girl instead.

The concubine was older than Mark, and experienced, and beautiful, and just a warm hole to fuck, in the end, because that’s almost the only thing Mark can remember of her. She broke his rut after three days, kissed him on the lips despite telling him she didn’t do kisses, – “I’m sorry,” she said, “this wasn’t part of our deal, but I wanted to know what my future king tastes of, Your Highness,” – and left in a flurry of silk gowns and a cloud of jasmine perfume. Mark refused to touch another Omega after that and spent his ruts alone.

Being afraid of love, Mark doesn’t understand what it means, what it feels like. He can accept it – because Donghyuck’s trust in him is fragile and beautiful like a flower, and a flower can’t be forced to grow, a flower can only be nurtured, and if Donghyuck is afraid Mark cannot force that love out of him – but he cannot understand it.

Mark craves the connection, not between two bodies but between two souls. There, with two fingers inside his husband, as closer to Donghyuck as he’s ever been, he realizes it doesn’t matter how deep he goes, Donghyuck is still a mirage in the desert, locked in the tower of his mind, refusing to let down his tresses for Mark to climb the fucking walls. The thought makes him a little meanier, a little more cruel and insistent in his teasing, and Donghyuck’s breathing grows labored and irregular, unable to keep up with Mark’s rhythm inside of him.

“You think I’ve never fucked an Omega in heat?” he asks, and even if the tone sounds light and friendly, it hardly is. Donghyuck can feel it too, and he clamps down around Mark’s fingers, his whole body clenching and unclenching as he barely musters the strength for a glare. If Mark touched his dick now, he would come in three strokes. Mark doesn’t.

“What do you mean, you…”

“Because I did. But it doesn’t matter, does it Donghyuck? Since we aren’t lovers, we aren’t even friends, we’re just married. And we weren’t married when it happened, so you don’t need to make that angry face at me.”

Donghyuck tries to complain but he’s too close and his mouth just falls open in a silent moan. His lips are dark and swollen and slick, and Mark inches closer, flicks his left nipple, runs a hand through his sides, thrusts his fingers inside him once, twice and lays a quick kiss at the corner of Donghyuck’s mouth.

It’s the kiss, more than everything else, that has Donghyuck falling on the other side, coming finally, with his head leant back against the edge of the pool, showing Mark his neck and the mating mark on his shoulder, where Mark sucks another one as Donghyuck comes back from his high.

“You’re such an asshole,” Donghyuck says, panting, after he’s recovered from his orgasm enough to talk. “Was that even true or you just said it because you’re still holding a grudge over me saying that I don’t want to fall in love with you?”

“Why should I tell you?” answers Mark, with a shrug. He gets up, turns on the faucet to make lukewarm water fill the empty tub around them. Donghyuck shivers, trying to flatten himself against the bottom where the warmth is finally pooling, and then blinks, and rage takes over his face so quick it’s almost comical.

“Why are you so petty, Mark? Why can’t you just,” he splutters, and his face is so flushed and glowing after coming, “why can’t you accept that I don’t like you? Does it really hurt your Alpha pride that much that there’s an Omega not willing to bend over for you?”

Well, technically this Omega did just bend over for him, thinks Mark, and pretty easily too. The problem is that Mark doesn’t want sex, not exclusively. Mark wants to fall in love. He might not be there yet, and Donghyuck is still confusing and inconsistent and a hot mess, and still Mark feels some kind of reverence when he looks at him, some shine. He wants to fall, but he doesn’t want to crash.

“You know very well my Alpha pride has very little to do with this.”

“Then why are you being so fastidious? Do you think this is a game? Let’s see how much I can push Donghyuck before he breaks? Because I don’t know if you've realized but I've always won, every time we played a game.”

“Would you play it, if it was a game?” he asks, but Donghyuck draws back, lets himself sink down in the rapidly filling tub. The scent of lavender fills the air, washing away the smell of sex, but not Donghyuck’s distress.

“Don't do this to yourself,” he warns, even though to Mark it seems more like he’s saying, _Don't do this to me._ “You can’t win against me, Mark. I’ll break your heart.”

“There's always a first time for everything, you know.”

“Oh, yes, there is, but my first time already came and I learned my lesson. Love is a hoax, I want nothing to do with it.”

“Who was it?” Mark says, moving forward until his knees are spread at either side of Donghyuck’s knees, forcing Donghyuck to pay attention to him, caging him in but without physically touching him. “Who broke your heart so bad that you won’t give me a chance?”

Donghyuck’s smile is bitter. “Why should I tell you?” he answers, with a shrug, mimicking Mark’s previous response. “What do you want from me, Mark? I’m trying my best, I swear, I’m giving you my loyalty, I’m giving you my obedience when you deserve it, I’m giving you my best years.”

 _You’re not giving yourself to me, you’re giving yourself to your country and mine,_ thinks Mark. _The problem is, I’m starting to think I want you for myself only._

“Sometimes it feels like you keep toying with me just because you can,” sighs Donghyuck, closing his eyes and letting himself sink deeper, until half of his face is underwater, is upper lip peeking from the surface. “Just because you want to show me how powerless I am compared to you.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Then why? Why are you doing this? You already have all of me, why do you want me to give you more?”

That’s the most important question. Donghyuck’s lips are heart-shaped and chapped and Mark finds himself wanting to kiss them, again and again. He won’t, not until Donghyuck wants it too.

“Because I do like you,” he says, and it’s the most honest truth he’s ever told his husband, the most naked, the most dangerous and the most terrifying. “And if you don’t, it’s fine. I’ll show you. I’ll make you like me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to spoil a little bit of the next chapter by saying what Mark really means with his last words but I decided against it in the end. You can try to guess though~ What I can spoil is that next chapter should, if everything goes well, feature THE SPARRING SCENE. I'm dying to write it, I hope I don't just end up adding another scene in the middle ;;
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed ♥


	8. viii. and you stand in the forest, breath mingled with all kinds of colors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of boring notes, you can totally skip but I'll probably tell who Donghyuck's first love is somewhere in the middle so don't skip.  
> \- PROMOTION TIME FOR [this stunning golden Donghyuck](https://twitter.com/lunnarsystem/status/1147581799004016641) by @/lunnarsystem, pls like and follow on twitter it's so beautiful it made me cry how can people be talented and choose to share their talent with us i'm ;;;; (if you're curious, all honemouthed related fanarts are posted on the notes in ch1, at the beginning of the fic)  
> \- I don't know when I will update next week bc I'm flying back to Venice for a graduation ceremony and I'll be death on legs when I finally get to my house on the 20th. I usually sleep for three days straight when I touch my bed so if I get to update before that you'll get an update, if you don't you'll have to wait for me to wake up sorry (I'll try my best to write an update, even if it's short, and post it before I get home but I can't promise anything.)  
> \- I know most of you are siding either with Mark or Donghyuck. I think everyone is free to read whatever they want in any piece of literature, even pop lit like fanfictions, so you can have any headcanon you want and I'll never tell you you're wrong. If you share it with me, I will share my headcanon, which is really the canon because I'm the author, but that doesn't mean I'm saying your opinion is not valid.  
> \- Donghyuck's first love is a secret. I want to be very clear with you. We're seeing the story from Mark's pov, and I can assure you that Mark is not only the most unreliable narrator ever, but also an outsider. Which means that even if someone tells him what happened in Donghyuck's past, Mark still wouldn't have any way to know Donghyuck's true feelings unless Donghyuck chooses to tell him. I'm telling you this because there's been more than one person in Donghyuck's life (Mark included) but Mark can only try to guess what happened and it's not guaranteed that he will be right just because he thinks he got it. As usual, you can tell me what you think here or on cc but I cannot confirm or deny anything.  
> \- I want to thank you all for the absolutely stunning support, I never would've guessed this fic could attract so much attention and I'm doing my best not to let it overwhelm me. Thank you so much. I hope you can enjoy this chapter as well <3
> 
> \- [chapter title insp](https://avolitorial.tumblr.com/post/164988364702/bracketed-from-translation-by-anne-carson)

Sparring with Yukhei is always as difficult as it is easy.

Easy, because Mark and Yukhei – Minhyung and Xuxi – have been sparring together since they were six years old, and Mark knows every move, every habit, every quirk of Yukhei’s technique – how he places his feet on the ground, how he angles his body, his favorite attack patterns and the span of time it takes for him to switch his guard and start defending, Mark looks at Yukhei and sees his best friend and his strong points and his fatal flaws, where to aim and where to defend.

Difficult because, well, Yukhei knows Mark in the same annoying way. But that’s also why it’s funny. Mark and Yukhei don’t fight to prove who’s stronger, but to show off, to complement each other and not to prevail. They know each other well enough that the fight becomes a dance, a waltz to a song of heavy breathing and dull clashes and the voice of the wind stirring the trees of the woods. A dance in which the purpose of every move – every lunge, every cleave and every parry – is not to draw blood, but to write a story.

Today’s story, Mark thinks as he recoils under Yukhei’s unrelenting attacks, feet slipping in the gruel of dry leaves and mud of the clearing, will not end very well, but it is still worth being told, somehow. Yukhei takes a half step back to distract Mark and disrupts his defensive stance before he lunges again, his sword falling like a club in the general direction of Mark’s chest. It lands against the flat of Mark’s blade instead, and slides down the edge towards the hilt, when Mark finally talks.

“I think I like Donghyuck.”

Yukhei’s body betrays him before he can even change expression, and Mark exploits that split second of confusion to kick his heels against the ground and throw himself against Yukhei, knocking his sword out of his hand and tackling him until his best friend falls backwards in the middle of the clearing.

“Fuck!” Yukhei screams, punching the ground.

Mark lets out a tired laugh and drops the sword.

“It’s three wins for me and one for you, I guess,” he says, causing Yukhei to glare at him.

“You fucking cheater!”

“Careful, Wong, or I’ll have to take your last point for foul language.”

“You son of a harlot,” Yukhei continues, before switching to the language of his mother to insult Mark’s whole dynasty in a language Mark has only made the effort to learn to appreciate the vivacity and creativity of Yukhei’s expletives. He squats down next to his best friend and wipes the sweat off his face. Above their heads, a thin ring of light shines behind the clouds, still too pale and cold to cut through the morning fog.

“And what is this shit about liking Donghyuck? I thought he was, and I quote, a thorn in the good side of the world, the stick constantly stuck in your royal butt, the most aggravating, offending little brat of the known lands.”

Mark doesn’t answer. He holds a hand for Yukhei to take and pulls him up, grimacing when Yukhei wipes the grime on his palms on Mark’s training blouse.

“Is he that good in bed?” Yukhei asks, as he turns around to look for his sword. “There’s no other explanation, I doubt his personality improved that much in just a few months, unless you have a magical dick that shut him up for good or he has a magical ass that…”

Yukhei stops, suddenly, to stare at Mark, and that’s when Mark realizes he’s blushing.

“Is he _really_ that good in bed?” Yukhei asks, almost sulking.

Mark is tempted to push him in the mud again, but even Yukhei’s patience has a limit and he’s a lot taller than Mark. He can hit harder than Mark.

“It’s not just that,” he mutters in the end.

Yukhei rolls his sword in his end, texting its weight. “So he _is_ good in bed.”

“You do realize how inappropriate it is to talk about him in this way with you, right? You’re going to see him at lunch and then you’re going to think about him getting fucked, by me, and knowing you, you’re going to get hard. And then I will have no choice but to behead you.”

Mark expects Yukhei to laugh, loud and unrestrained, but Yukhei furrows his brows, his gaze faraway for a moment, his scent sharpening. “If I have to be completely honest with you, I always thought he deserved a good dicking. I don’t know how you still haven’t given it to him after all the times he humiliated you when you were children.”

Mark lets his sword fall to the ground, torn between agreeing with Yukhei and punch him in the face.

“I really like him,” he says in the end. “The goddess strike me, I like him more than I ever liked his sister.”

It’s not until he’s said it that he realizes how true it is. He’s courted Dongsoon and held her hands and kissed her soft lips because it was his duty, but he trained until his hands were bleeding to beat Donghyuck and he did that for himself. He did that for Donghyuck, to prove to him that Mark was worthy – of what, he didn’t really know back then, but now he realizes that maybe he’s been proving himself worthy of Donghyuck’s attention, of Donghyuck, all along. Well, trying to prove himself, and failing so bad at it.

“But why?” insists Yukhei.

_For the same reason everyone likes him, because he shines. Because he’s strong and unyielding and so, so pretty. Because he’s kind, to everyone but me, and because he’s brave and smart and loyal. Because he’s always been better than me, at everything. And I’ve tried, I’ve tried my whole life to be better than Prince Donghyuck of the Southern Islands, to prove him I could be his equal, and I don’t know if I ever will, but I want. I want that shine. I want to ruin him for everyone else. I want him to ruin me, more than he’s already done it._

“I just like him. I feel so hopeless and foolish but I like him so much, ‘khei.”

“Well, good thing you married him then… Right?”

Mark looks down, at his dirty shoes and the hole in his pants from when he fell before. He swallows the mist before he answers.

“He doesn’t like me back. Like, at all.”

“Oh.”

Well, it’s not that Donghyuck doesn’t like Mark. Donghyuck never said anything about not liking Mark

“He said he doesn’t want to fall in love. That we don’t need to fall in love to make this marriage work.”

Yukhei sighs and leans down to collect Mark’s sword, probably realizing that their sparring time is over. The sun is growing warmer with every passing second, finally gracing the woods with its light for the first time after a week of relentless rain. It must already be mid-morning, which means Mark has to go back to the castle and get refreshed if he doesn’t want to be late for lunch with his family and his husband, followed by an audience with prince Jaemin of the Na Empire – and the mere thought makes him wince in annoyance.

“Shall we go back?” Yukhei says, and Mark just shrugs because it wasn’t really a question, they do need to go back. He lets Yukhei carry his sword as they track their own steps back through the woodpath until they leave the old, cold shade of the trees for the dewy grass of the fields surrounding the training area.

“You know,” Yukhei says, breaking a silence made only of their steps and the rustling of the wind, “I was thinking.”

“Sometimes you do too,” answers Mark, leading them through the shortcut around the shooting lanes. The barracks and the training fields, usually so hectic and bursting with harsh shouts and the heavy steps of soldiers in full armor, are deserted. The drills have been suspended because of the rain and the whole area is eerily quiet, a first in Mark’s life.

Yukhei must feel it too, and his usually loud voice dies down to a nervous whisper. “I’m trying to give you valuable advice, Mark, don’t be an asshole.”

And Mark raises his hands in defeat because, well, he might be an asshole but he needs advice. “I’m all ears.”

“Just because your husband doesn’t like you…”

“Wait, he never really said he doesn’t like me,” mutters Mark, hastily, and Yukhei rolls his eyes.

“That’s what you said, but okay, okay, just because your husband doesn’t want to fall in love with you, that doesn’t mean it can’t happen.”

“And how?”

“Well, if you think about it, it kind of really makes sense. Donghyuck is an Omega who spent all his life as an Alpha and married you as soon as he presented, he must have never been courted properly, not once in his life.”

Mark’s steps slow down until he stops completely, Yukhei’s words taking over his whole brain, tampering with his motor skills.

“You really think so?” he asks. “But he had a fiancé, so he must have been…”

“He was probably the one doing the courting, not the opposite.” Yukhei scratches at his head. “Look, I don’t know what happened to your husband,” – and a memory flashes in front of Mark’s eyes, of Donghyuck’s sour, almost scared face, as he talked about his first love, – “but my sister is an Omega and it’s like… they like to be taken care of, you know? It makes them feel safe, it makes them feel better. And with Donghyuck’s history… Since everyone thought he was an Alpha I doubt he never even experienced that. He doesn't know what it feels like, he might not even know that he needs it.”

Yukhei shrugs again, the hands not holding the swords flailing as he struggles to explain himself, but Mark, in a rare, blessed moment of clarity, understood him very well. For a moment he feels, well, not guilty because it wasn’t his fault, but really, really sad, because he realizes no one must have ever made Donghyuck happy – no one ever knew how to make Donghyuck happy. And Yukhei is right, Donghyuck probably doesn’t know himself. He craves, and he doesn’t even know how.

“Yukhei,” Mark murmurs under his breath, “you might not be wrong, this time.”

And Yukhei scoffs, huffles out a, “Modestly,” and turns back towards the gate again, but then he suddenly stops.

“Did you hear that?”

“What?”

“It was like a…”

But that’s when Mark hears it too. A hiss. The cry of an arrow before it hits the target.

“The shooting lanes should have been evacuated,” Yukhei whispers, eyes looking for Mark’s, “right?”

Mark nods. Orders of Yukhei’s father. Not even Mark and Yukhei have permission to be here, which is why they chose to train in the forest instead of risking a public reprimand in front of their own soldiers. Well, they wouldn’t be punished very harshly, but knowing the king and General Hwang, they would definitely be punished.

Another hiss, another dull thump as the arrow hits the target. Yukhei throws Mark his training sword. It’s blunt, but big and heavy enough to hurt, and they’re both good swordsmen, enough to deal with any possible trespasser. They must be trespassers, because none of the guards of the palace would dare disobey a direct order of the captain of the palace guards like that.

They move quietly, skirting around the tall fence that surrounds the shooting area, until they find themselves at the edge of the platform. Two figures are standing there, the farthest away from the targets, a distance that would be difficult even for Mark. The first one is holding a bow, the second a sword. Mark doesn’t even look at the second figure – he doesn’t hear Yukhei let out a soft curse before he stalks there to disarm the man, and he doesn’t hear the short commotion and the surprised gasp and the angry words that will follow.

Mark has only eyes and ears and blood to spill for the boy holding the bow. He immediately recognizes, even if it’s been years since the last time he saw it with his own eyes, the elegance of his posture, the perfect lines that his arms and shoulders and legs draw against the pale morning light, as if he’s nothing but an extension of the bow, as if the bow was invented just to be an extension of his body. Donghyuck of the Southern Islands nocks his arrow. He draws the string like it’s made of soft silk, and he makes it look so easy, so natural.

(And Mark remembers, when he was twelve and he went to see his first archery tournament at the Coraline, in the Southern Islands. The sweetness of the candy floss, the saltiness that seemed to pervade the air, so close to the sea, the sourness of sweat and loss. The hunger of the crowd, for glory, for victory. Johnny had shot for the Vale and a young Oh Sehun for the Na Empire, and Mark recalls the way they had both stood, in front of the targets, for the longest time each, gauging the wind, calculating, praying for their hands to stop shaking, muscles contracted, faces distorted in a grimace, like statues of salt at the end of time. They had both hit the bullseye almost every time.

But in the Islands, form is worth as much as substance. Donghyuck had shot for the Islands, and back then, just like today, he had barely looked at the target before nocking his arrow, letting the world shudder and clench around him, the entire universe straining to fit into a single moment, a single boy, a child. Donghyuck didn’t even hold the form. He just shot – as if he was nothing but an extension of the bow, as if the bow was invented just to be an extension of his body – as if he was the son of the god of the sun. He shot after a split second of beauty. He hit the bullseye. Over and over again. He won the tournament without even aiming at the target.)

The sun is trapped for a moment against the spun gold of Donghyuck’s hair and Mark winces and closes his eyes at the sudden shine, just as Donghyuck releases the arrow. He doesn’t need to look to know it hit the bullseye.

 

❃

 

Surprisingly, Yukhei is the one who gets angry.

“Do you have any idea of what could’ve happened if it had been someone else, anyone else, to find you here instead of us? Do you, Jungwoo?”

Jungwoo looks down, trying to make himself small – a quite difficult feat for someone his height.

“I’m sorry,” he tries to say, but Yukhei cuts him off, furious, barely containing the need to scream.

“Not only this area was off limits, but the Prince is an Omega, he’s not supposed to touch any kind of weapons, he’s not supposed to break into restricted areas to practice with any kind of weapons, and more than everything you’re not supposed to help him, you’re supposed to stop him!”

Kim Jungwoo, one of the best fighters in the entire guard of the palace, quick on his feet, heavy on his sword, skilled enough to be entrusted with the safety of the Prince Consort, shrinks a little more. He will cry, Mark realizes. If this goes on Jungwoo will break and cry in front of them. Mark could put an end to it, but Yukhei has any and every reason to be angry. If anyone else had found them disrespecting the Lord Commander’s orders so blatantly and unabashedly, Donghyuck would’ve been reprimanded, sure, and his freedom would have certainly been restricted, but Jungwoo would’ve lost his spot in the Guard, his dignity, his future, everything. And he knows, he clearly knows – that’s why he shakes, that’s why he swallows, hoping to push down the tears together with the knot in his throat. And yet, he chose to second Donghyuck’s requests. (Because this, it is painfully clear to Mark, this was Donghyuck’s idea.)

Mark ignores Jungwoo and Yukhei both, to look at Donghyuck. The prince is still standing at the shooting line, his shoulders square, his mouth set in a tight line, jaw tense, head straight, chin up, like a sacrifice ready to meet his tragic destiny, walking to the edge of the cliff with all the dignity he has left. This kind of self-righteously brave despair pisses the fuck out of Mark. He wants to snap at his husband, ask him if he feels proud of having put not only himself but also Jungwoo in trouble, all for his own amusement. Mark likes Donghyuck, but he trained with Jungwoo for years and beyond the sense of betrayal and disappointment he feels right now towards one of the most promising and stupid recruits of the Vale, he can’t bear to think about what could’ve happened to Jungwoo if someone else had gotten to them before Mark and Yukhei did. And it would’ve been Donghyuck’s fault.

“How many times?” he asks, and Jungwoo opens his mouth to answer, to obey his Alpha’s order – too late, he should’ve talked before he was caught red-handed – but Mark cuts him off, keeping his eyes trained on Donghyuck’s so that there’s no doubt on who’s supposed to be answering the question instead.

“I’m not talking to you, Kim Jungwoo. And it would be best for you to keep your mouth shut for the time being. How many times, Your Highness?” he repeats, using that title Donghyuck likes so much to use with him when he wants to put some distance.

Donghyuck’s finger tighten around the curve surface of the bow. He holds it desperately, like a child who’s afraid of someone taking away his toy, and the image tears at the anger around Mark’s heart, squeezing it in the process.

“How many times did you do this?” he asks again.

“Twice with Jungwoo,” Donghyuck answers, in the end.

“And without Jungwoo?”

Donghyuck looks down and doesn’t answer. Of course he doesn’t answer. Jungwoo was supposed to look over him, and it’s bad enough that he helped him break the law instead of reporting everything to Mark like he was supposed to. If they add the fact that he let the prince slip between his fingers a couple of times, losing his position in the Guard would be the last of his problems. Banishment is the most probable outcome.

Mark can feel Yukhei’s anger and Jungwoo’s guilt, and yet, despite their bond, he can’t feel what Donghyuck is thinking – his demeanor screams defiance but he’s still clinging onto the bow like a lifeline, like he’d rather shoot someone than let them take it away from him. (And they would be able to, in the end, but the first one trying would be dead even before having a chance to touch Donghyuck.)

“Yukhei.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Take Jungwoo with you and keep guard at the gates.”

“What?”

Mark’s request is met by polite confusion, but he simply gestures for Yukhei to comes closer. “Take Jungwoo, give him a good scolding, threaten to take his silver cloak or demean him to a squire, do whatever you want, but keep an ear out for people and if you hear someone arrive send a voice.”

Yukhei’s eyes narrow, voice a whisper that only Mark can hear. “What are you going to do, Mark?”

“I need to talk to my husband. Alone.”

And Mark is not the most assertive Alpha. He’s soft-spoken and patient and very understanding. He sits down with his soldiers and shares the chow with them, thighs against thighs, he asks them about their families and their loved ones, about their dreams, or their opinion on a complicated war strategy. He cares. He makes people wecome him as one of them, this humble, down to earth prince that remembers the names of their little brothers and sisters. He doesn’t raise his voice, he doesn’t humiliate his subjects, and the entire army blindly loves him. But Mark is also an Alpha, and not just any Alpha. He’s the Alpha of the entire country, and there’s no telling him no when he’s like this. Yukhei understands that. He takes a step back, bowing curtly to please Mark’s inner Alpha, to show his loyalty. Mark’s inner Alpha is indeed pleased.

“As you wish, Your Highness.” Yukhei turns towards Jungwoo. “Did you hear the Prince? Let’s go.”

Jungwoo nods, still shaking. They both turn to leave.

“Ah, and Yukhei?”

“Yes?”

“Leave the swords here.”

Mark waits until Yukhei and Jungwoo have disappeared before turning towards Donghyuck, who’s still clinging onto the bow like it could somehow save him from Mark’s wrath.

“Put that down.”

Donghyuck hesitates for the shortest moment, but, for the first time, he complies instead of complaining. He squats down to lay the bow next to the almost full quiver. If Mark squints, he can see the arrows crowding the center of the target – two, or maybe three, so close they could as well be one – on the other side of the shooting line, so far away, a testament of Donghyuck’s ability.

“Come closer.”

Donghyuck shivers, but, again, he doesn’t protest. It’s because he’s in the wrong, Mark quickly realizes. And he knows. Donghyuck, who would fight like an animal if he thought someone was faulting him, meekly walks towards him, ready to accept his punishment. He looks pale under this cold, nervous sun, and thin, and washed out. He’s wearing one of Mark’s dark jackets, open over one of his flimsy silk blouses, and he shrinks into it when Mark’s hands come to the front to fasten the buttons one after another.

“You shouldn’t be out in the cold, you were sick,” Mark says, his voice neutral, cupping Donghyuck’s face with his hands. _You shouldn’t be here at all. What am I supposed to do with you now?_

Donghyuck swallows – Mark feels his throat move under his palms – and looks up, staring at Mark with big, guilty eyes. The physician was right. He looks like a bird, a little summer bird, trapped in Mark’s embrace, all heartbeat and fear and the atavic desire to fly. Mark could punish him for what he’s done today. He has the authority, he even has the reasons. As much as his parents love Donghyuck, as much as both of their countries love Donghyuck, their golden prince, honeymouthed and full of wildflowers, he’s still an Omega who doesn’t know his place, and if Mark lets his mate disrespect him, how is he supposed to rule a country? Oh, Mark can drag him home by his hair, he can cut his wings and lock him a cage, throw the key away forever. And Donghyuck will only be his, a warm body to return to every night, a sweet mouth that sings his name, and Mark will fill him with his seed, fuck any memory of his old life, of his independence, any thought of rebellion, out of him – and isn’t that what Donghyuck wanted, as well? No love, not even friendship, just their bodies sliding together, like animals in heat, doing what they were brought together to do. He leans down, eyeing Donghyuck’s lips. If he were to kiss now, would Donghyuck tell him no? Can Donghyuck really tell Mark no, now or any other moment?

_What are you waiting for?_

The thought swirls in his head for a sweet, poisonous moment, but Mark already knows what Donghyuck would taste of – ruin, glorious and golden and still ruin. He lets him go – he forces himself to let him go, and Donghyuck stumbles back, falling messily on his butt. He looks up at Mark, and he looks scared, in a way that makes Mark feel ashamed.

He doesn’t want this. He never wanted this. And maybe Donghyuck wants it, maybe it’s what he’s wanted since the beginning, from their aborted wedding night, from his refusal to drink the flower wine. Maybe Donghyuck wants to be used – and Mark wonders, he wonders, who used him before, who made him think this was the best he could wish for – but Yukhei is right and Donghyuck doesn’t really know what he wants. Mark does.

“You’re not going to apologize, Donghyuck? You need to, if you want to be forgiven.”

Donghyuck bites his bottom lip, stares at Mark with the ghost of defiance haunting his eyes and shame staining his cheeks and guilt blossoming in his chest.

“I’m sorry,” he says, so docile, so submissive, so unlike the boy Mark likes. “Please forgive me, Alpha.”

Something flutters in Mark’s chest – it feels like victory, it feels like ruin. Mark chases it away.

“Take the sword,” he says, and Donghyuck blinks, confused.

Mark kicks Yukhei’s sword towards him. He takes his own. Donghyuck looks at him again, on his knees, his lips pink and soft, his eyes big, and Mark doesn’t understand how in this earth he could think he doesn’t look Omega enough. Mark’s Alpha wants him – the instinct rumbling inside his chest wants the ruin, wants to ruin him and be ruined in return. Mark wants… he wants the gold.

“Take the sword,” he repeats, “and if you want my forgiveness, come and win it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /dramatic drop/  
> I'm really sorry for not writing the sparring scene here but it's a really long scene and I couldn't just fit in this chapter. Also I know it feels short because there are only two scenes, but they're both very long scenes (especially the first) and we really needed to lay some background information. Again, I hope you liked it, and we might see each other again sooner than you think with the next update <3


	9. ix. we were once children who took delight like this

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm extremely sorry for the wait and for not replying the comments and mostly for the wait, I went back to Italy with like two different transfers and also stopped in Venezia two days for a graduation before I could fly home and I had to pack beforehand and then the jetlag and basically I didn't rest for five days which ofc caused a great delay in the update ;;  
> +I'm not extremely happy with this update, it was written in a hurry and I'm not sure it's up to my standards, also it's really unbetaed (but I'll edit it severely in the next couple of days, I promise). It is a very important chapter and I struggled a lot to write it, both because sparring is difficult to write in itself and also because I wanted to give it a certain atmosphere, and I really hope you can feel it because I did my best in a very short time ;;  
> \+ Thank you so much for the support. I'll update this post tomorrow with all the beautiful art, edits, plus a special link to my writing playlist with a moodboard, but I also wanted to thank personally everyone who took the time to comment, ask me info on cc on through dms, or just shared the fic on sns. I usually see the posts (not all of them, but some of them) and they make me incredibly happy.  
> I'll leave you to the chapter, thank you again and, as usual, feel free to tell me what you think! I'm always super happy to hear your theories or just screams or whatever you want to chat about <3

One step forward and two steps backwards.

That’s how Donghyuck lives. That’s how Donghyuck fights. It’s the kind of sword style that people like Yukhei hate the most, all tantalizing, teasing touches of blade on blade, footwork like a dance, elegant and graceful.

“It’s cowardly,” Yukhei once said, “that’s not how wars should be fought.”

“That’s wrong,” Mark wanted to answer, “that’s how wars are won.”

With prudence and cleverness. With sense.

That’s how Donghyuck won against Mark, how he took and took and took, a victory after another, an endless stream of humiliation. Donghyuck comes close long enough to let you see the gold shining in the cracks, the sliver of sun filtering under the door of his guard. Donghyuck taunts, and goads, and teases. Donghyuck lures people in. Donghyuck shines, in a way that makes you want to steal him away, like a precious treasure, and it doesn’t matter how dangerous, how lethal it can be, you want it anyway.

Donghyuck looks at Mark as he takes the sword. He does it slowly, cautiously, like a cornered animal, too wary to accept the crumbs of food it’s been offered, too hungry to refuse it. His eyes stay fixed on Mark’s as he raises the weapon, gauging its weight. He probably thinks it’s a trap, a way to get him in even more trouble, and yet he cannot refuse Mark, not today – not after Mark caught him disrespecting his country, his king’s order, and more than everything his authority as an Alpha.

Yukhei’s thick training sword feels foreign in Donghyuck’s hands, almost wrong – the blade too long and wide, too heavy, too Yukhei – and yet sometimes unravels in Mark's chest when he sees Donghyuck like this, with a sword in his hands, not helpless and weak. Dangerous. Mark likes him more when he's dangerous.

Mark charges first, like he always did in each of his duels against Donghyuck, and he immediately realizes there's something wrong when Donghyuck only makes an half-assed attempt to block his attack, leaving his side wide open. Mark sees the opening – there’s no way he could miss it, it’s big enough for an entire battalion to slip through it, surely big enough that Donghyuck, who never _ever_ leaves any openings, knows very well it’s there – and tries to poke at it, to see how Donghyuck reacts. Is it a trap or a bait, is it some kind of test? Not even a rookie would make such a dumb mistake, after all. Mark lunges weakly at Donghyuck and purposefully slows down when he’s taking his defensive stance again, leaving more than enough time for Donghyuck to strike back, but Donghyuck doesn’t exploit the weakness. He merely parries the attack and goes back to defending, his lack of counterattack leaving no doubts. He’s not even trying.

Something angry and vengeful pops in Mark’s chest, hot and violent, like a geyser, like an eruption, a jet of inconsistent, erratic power surging through his veins, and the way he brings the flat of the sword down on his mate’s wrist is nothing short of unstoppable, too fast and strong for Donghyuck to dodge – not that he could have, with his form this messed up and sloppy.

Donghyuck hisses in pain, losing his grip on Yukhei’s sword, and before the blade can clang against the wet ground Mark’s sword has already drawn a sharp arc in the air, the tip stopping right under Donghyuck’s throat, a breath away from his pulse.

None of them hear the sound of Yukhei’s sword hitting the ground. Mark looks for Donghyuck’s eyes, always so loud, always so daring, and he finds them clouded, muted, fixed on the ground.

“Is this everything you can do?” he asks, and a muscle twitches in Donghyuck’s jaw, almost as if he just swallowed a reply, a reaction, anything. “Take the sword.”

“I will accept any punishment…”

“Take the fucking sword, Donghyuck!”

Donghyuck breathes deeply through his nose, his lips tight. He swallows. He ducks to take the sword again.

Mark waits until Donghyuck has taken his defensive stance before he charges again. It’s a quick, angry sequence of attacks, more anger than strategy, more power then technique, the kind of attacks Donghyuck would’ve parried with his eyes closed in the past – the kind of attacks Donghyuck would’ve tried to bait Mark into, mindless, berserk strikes that leave so much space for mistakes. And yet Donghyuck manages to block the first lunge, barely the second, his feet slipping slightly on the muddy ground, and the third slips past his shaky defenses to stop in front of his heart.

“I don’t understand,” says Mark slowly, keeping his tone light, almost amused, purposefully belittling. “You used to be better than this. You used to be better than me.”

Donghyuck looks down, ashamed, as the tip of Mark’s sword taps against his chest, knocking at the door of his heart, before trailing up, slowly, against the fastenings of his jacket – Mark’s jacket – and then tracing the muscles on his neck before it stops, again, at his throat.

“Is it because you’re an Omega? Did the slick between your legs wash away all your talent too?”

It’s harsh, but not harsh enough because Donghyuck shakes, shakes, and still he won’t meet Mark’s eyes. Mark draws the sword higher, using the blunt tip to tilt Donghyuck’s head up until he’s staring right at Mark, showing him exactly what he wanted to see. Donghyuck’s eyes are glowing with rage and something that reminds Mark of embers, burning gold from their bed of ashes.

“Or maybe I’m just trying to defend your honor,” Donghyuck whispers, slapping Mark’s sword away with his own. “After all it wouldn’t be proper, for an Alpha, to be beaten to the curb by his Omega. Though after all the times I’ve already humiliated you, it might be already too late for that.”

“Ah, so you’re still there, after all. You almost got me fooled with the whole submissive roleplay.”

Donghyuck’s eyes widen as he realizes he’s slipped. His lips almost disappear into a tight, nervous line, but he doesn’t dare look away.

“Is this the game you’re trying to play, Donghyuck? Do you enjoy playing the part of the weak, defenseless Omega, just to please me? Do you think you can really lie to my face like that?”

“Isn’t that what you want?”

“I want a mate who’s strong enough to match me.”

Donghyuck’s mouth opens in a crooked smile and Mark feels the jab before Donghyuck can utter the first word.

“Then you really want a weak, defenseless Omega.”

His voice is so sweet but his words are poison. Well, the Chronicles of the Goddess teach you can only fight poison with poison.

“Do you think you’re being hilarious? Maybe you don’t understand, Donghyuck of the Southern Islands. You’re nor fighting for my amusement or to feed my pride. You’re fighting for my forgiveness. And I’m not going to forgive you for breaking my kingdom’s rules, my father rules… I’m not going to forgive you for breaking _my_ rules, if you’re not even going to put up a good fight. You want to be an Omega? You can roll on the ground then, and I will fuck the defiance out of you like a dog, because that’s what we do to unruly Omegas in the Vale.” Donghyuck hisses at that, the hold on the sword tightening, his whole body tightening, until he’s all tense and ready to snap, more arrow than sword. “Or you can fight me like a man, show me how much of you is left. Do you think you can beat me, Donghyuck?”

Mark is not expecting it. He doesn’t even see it coming. He just feels the pain in his wrist where the flat of Donghyuck’s blade hits him – mirroring the way Mark attacked him earlier – and then he has Yukhei’s blade at his throat and Donghyuck looking at him, his lips shaking but his hands firm, wind and sunlight in his hair, carrying shine around him like a cloak.

“I can.”

Oh, he can, of course he can. That only makes Mark want him more.

 

❃

 

One step forward, two steps backwards.

And then forward again, to meet Mark in the middle and parry his strike, like a ritual, like a dance. The way it should be. Donghyuck attacks and draws back and attacks again, and the sword whirls in his hands. The blade is still too heavy and too long, and Mark can feel the imprecision in his movements, the slight smudges in his usually cut-clean, sharp attacks, but it’s still fast and fluid, it’s still seamless, just his body moving out of instinct, meeting Mark’s attacks and pulling at his defenses with seemingly effortless skill.

Donghyuck wretches the first win from him easily, gracefully, but Mark gains the second, stopping the sword with his gauntlet and stepping on Donghyuck’s foot before hitting him in the stomach with the pommel of the sword.

Donghyuck falls back, holding his side at the height of the spleen. He coughs and spits on the ground.

“Ah, who would have ever imagined,” he says, breathless, “that the pristine, honorable prince of the Vale… could play dirty.”

Mark scoffs, switching the sword to his other hand. He’s not as good with the left as he is with his dominant hand, but he hopes it will unsettle Donghyuck enough to gain him another point.

“I learned from the best,” he answers, and his words ignite a brief, proud smile in Donghyuck, one that only lasts for a moment and is bright enough to blind Mark.

They’re both sweating at this point. Mark can feel the ache in his limbs from training with Yukhei for a whole hour, but Donghyuck hasn’t probably had a proper sparring session in the last six months, since he presented, and he’s breathing heavily through his nose, chest rising and falling under the silk of his blouse. He lost Mark’s jacket after their first clash, the one he won, and through the flimsy fabric Mark can already see the beginning of a bruise blossoming on his side where he hit him.

“Do you think you can go for another round?” he asks. “You look worse for wear, Your Grace.”

Donghyuck chuckles, amused and tired at the same time, and then his expression shifts brightens all of a sudden.

“We can go one last time, and settle it once and for all. But if I win, you will have to forgive me, Your Highness” he says, eyes shining with a clever, dangerous light. He looks young and hungry for glory, and for a moment they’re thirteen and fourteen again, awkward and eager and insanely competitive, except they wouldn’t have smiled back then, neither of them. Now, though, Donghyuck smiles, foxy and sharp and excited, and Mark shakes his head and smiles back, because he fucking missed that Donghyuck, but this one is ever better.

“Be my guest,” he answers, humoring Donghyuck with a hint of a bow, before he raises his sword.

They both know they’re not really fighting for Mark’s forgiveness at this point. Maybe they were, in the beginning, but they stopped the moment Mark asked Donghyuck to pick up the sword again after disarming him the first time. (If they had stopped there, maybe, it could’ve been justified somehow as a way for an Alpha to teach an Omega his place, to show him how ill-suited he was to think he could hold a weapon in his pretty hands. Mark doesn’t really agree with the rest of the world on Donghyuck’s place. In a war, he’d rather keep Donghyuck at his side than at home.) But Mark asked Donghyuck to take the sword, Mark asked his Omega to fight for real, and they both know what Mark was really doing was lifting the responsibility from Donghyuck’s shoulders as much as he could. After all, as much as Donghyuck wronged the laws of the Vale by dueling without permission, he was dueling against the Crown Prince, so if this ever gets to the king they will both have to share the sin and the punishment.

This time it’s slower, calculated. They move in circle, wary to launch the first attack, and when they do, they mostly parry and step back. Donghyuck seems to be biding his time, waiting, speculating, his face tense and focused, and Mark doesn’t understand what is happening until a few exchanges later, when the wind rises suddenly and he’s invested by a whiff of pheromones.

It’s like plunging messily into a frozen lake, the ice collapsing under Mark’s feet to sink him into cold water. It hits him like a punch, and his body reacts faster than his brain – pulse speeding up and pupils dilating, his muscles clamping up around the hot loop of arousal burning in his gut – and Mark’s movements stutter as his mind tries to regain control. Too late.

Donghyuck takes a step forward, his sword sliding down the hilt of Mark’s own blade and hitting him hard in the leg before Donghyuck smiles wider and takes two steps back.

“I’d say that’s my win.”

Mark gapes, still confused.

“It wasn’t,” he murmurs, unable to finish the sentence, his brain drowning in the aftertaste of Donghyuck’s sweet scent.

“It was, I would’ve pierced your thigh with a proper sword, and now you would be bleeding to death, so… it’s a win.”

“It wasn’t fair,” finally manages to conclude Mark, brows furrowing as his brain finally catches up with what just happened… He can’t believe Donghyuck did… that… just to distract him. This brat, this cheating, shameless… “That’s like… so vile. How can you use your scent like that? That’s only for your mate to…”

“You are my mate, don’t you remember?”

Mark feels his face grow boiling hot. Donghyuck is right, but this… This is just… so improper.

“You’re the one who started playing dirty,” Donghyuck finishes, with a shrug, but Mark can see he’s not the only one affected from the way pink dusts his cheeks and ears and he squirms, probably feeling slick leak inside him, wetting the inside of his rim. Mark can feel it too, through their bond, and he takes a deep breath, trying to banish any image of Donghyuck and self-lubrication out of his mind or he won’t be able to fight further.

“Yes, but I meant, I don’t know, throwing sand in my eyes, not…” He flails a little, and Donghyuck’s cheeks grow as hot as Mark’s when he looks down and realizes Mark is hard, for him.

“I didn’t think you would be this affected,” he murmurs, “but it’s fine. Just admit I’m still the best and we can go home.”

“What?”

“Well, you clearly cannot fight like that and since you’re too much of a prude to scent me back I’d say I won fair and square.”

Mark scoffs. Donghyuck really is a child of the islands, shameless and daring, flaunting his scent like that. It’s not proper to do so in the Vale of the Giants. Only harlots do that, and beggars, and sometimes lowborns orphans who were never taught propriety. The children of the Vale, and especially the ones born in noble households, usually receive a stern training as soon as they present, so they can hide their scent and save it for their mate and their mate only, in the sanctity of their bedroom. They’re not exactly in the bedroom right now. However, Mark thinks as he takes a deep breath, Donghyuck _is_ his mate, and two can play this game.

“Fair and square is a reach,” he whispers as he lets go of his own control, and he can see the moment Donghyuck smells his scent, the full body shudder that runs through him, “more than winning it looks like you’re just gagging to be fucked.”

Donghyuck has to close his eyes, tighten his hold on the sword not to let it slip through his fingers. His scent thickens, daring, bold and teasing, and a little desperate, and Mark thinks maybe it was worth waiting all this time before unleashing his Alpha pheromones on him, because if the sight of Donghyuck holding a sword aroused him, the sight of Donghyuck squirming, struggling between holding onto the sword and the ancestral, primeval need to fall on his knees in front of his Alpha, has him painfully hard inside his slacks, ready to come like a teenager, untouched.

“You’re not that far away either, Your Highness,” Donghyuck says, wincing, hinting at the bulge in Mark’s pants. “Think you can fight like that?”

“If you can, I can,” Mark answers, even though his head is spinning and the need to throw himself against Donghyuck is completely overpowering his common sense.

“One last time, then?”

“One last time.”

They get ready to start, and that’s when they hear a whistle. And then another.

“What is that?” Donghyuck asks, and Mark’s eyes widen and he’s at Donghyuck’s side in a moment, grabbing him by the wrist and tugging.

“Fuck! It's the signal, Yukhei’s signal.”

“Which signal?”

“The signal that we need to run. Someone is coming!”

 

❃

 

For the first time in his boring, unexciting life, Mark finds himself running away from his own guards, hand in hand with his husband, like two teenagers caught during a quick hookup – except it’s not an hookup, just Mark getting busted while sparring illegally with his very Omega mate on an interdicted area. It’s juvenile, a little cliché and fucking exhilarating, and Mark feels like banging his head against the wall for doing something this careless and dangerous, because he’s not this person, he’s never been this person, but then Donghyuck squeezes his hand – and his heart at the same time – and Mark realizes that this, this moment, feeling his heart in his throat, the sweat cooling on their necks, the clammy hand clasped in his own, the hint of a breathless laughter on Donghyuck’s face, is something that belongs to them, to Mark and Donghyuck only. And he loves it.

They cut through the armory, ducking behind the booth of the blacksmith to escape the two guards looking for them – Mark recognizes them as Dongbin and Woodam, and he’s thankful he got a couple of rookies that have yet to present this time, because someone like Hendery would’ve found them from their scents only – and they’re tiptoeing around the barracks when they hear the sound of footsteps, too close for comfort.

“Here!”

Mark drags Donghyuck inside the first door they find and they stumble in one of the locker rooms.

It’s dark inside, and it smells like leather and sweat and locker talks, like fatigue, like trainees and soldiers and veterans, all huddled together, sharing the same cramped space. Mark is not familiar with this specific room, but they’re all the same, so he instinctively goes for the back room where the extra gear is stocked. He pushes Donghyuck between the wall and a tall cabinet, slipping in the space next to him so that only if someone was entering the room and checking behind the cabinet they’d be able to see them.

“Have you ever done anything like this? You look awfully tense,” Donghyuck murmurs, close enough that every word is almost a kiss on Mark’s jaw, and Mark tries to glare at him despite the lack of space.

“Shush,” he whispers, covering Donghyuck’s mouth with his hand. “They’re right outside.”

Donghyuck sends him an unimpressed look and open his lips against his palm, giving him kittenish licks until Mark is forced to let go.

“Stop it,” he growls-whispers, too embarrassed to actually be scary.

“Why are you hiding? You’re the prince, you could just go out there and say it was you.”

Mark gives another nervous glance at the door. He hears the word _trespassers_ and then a quick order to spread and look for two people.

“Did you hear that? They already saw there was two of us. And you shouldn’t be here.”

“What’s the worst they can do to us?”

To Mark? Not much. It’s not like the guards are going to arrest the Crown Prince and the Consort Prince for sneaking around their own palace, but Mark has no doubt the news would get to his father, and his father will certainly not be pleased to know they were caught fooling around with swords instead of trying to conceive the heir.

Mark looks at Donghyuck, hair mussed, short of breath, the residual thrill of the battle making his eyes shine more than all the gold in the palace can.

“They probably wouldn’t punish us, but they’re going to assign you another guard, maybe two. They’re never let you out of their sight again until you get pregnant, and even less after that.” Donghyuck looks down and doesn’t say anything, so Mark leans against him until their forehead are touching and he could brush his nose against Donghyuck if he tilted his head a little. “And I don’t want that to happen. I really missed sparring with you.”

Donghyuck blushes, making the room smell like him in a way that will probably be picked up by the guards outside in a moment. Mark wants to scold him, but he looks so flustered he doesn’t feel like chastisizing him.

“Did you? Even though I always win?” Donghyuck sniffles a little, nose scrunching, and Mark can’t understand if it’s because of the piles of dust floating around them or the sudden sadness in his voice. “It’s fine, even if it was only for today, I really enjoyed beating you again, Minhyung.”

He says the name softly, like he never said it when they were children, and Mark would like to keep this moment and cradle it in his hands, make it last just a little longer, like a dandelion shielded by his fingers against the first gush of wind, but the door of the changing room is swung open and the moment is wrung from his hands, blown away and scattered in the air by the cold breaths of Nothern winds.

“Check the back,” someone says, and Mark thinks _fuck, fuck, fuck this,_ and steps closer, crowding Donghyuck against the wall until there’s no space left between their bodies. Like this, he can feel the lingering hardness of Donghyuck’s cock pressing against his own, and, from the soft hiss Donghyuck grits between his teeth, he can feel it too. Mark draws a hand up, swiping a thumb on his bottom lip, feeling the plumpness against his rough fingertips.

“Follow my lead,” he says, anchoring his hands on Donghyuck’s hips before he leans down to land a soft kiss on his husband’s cheek, angling his head so that anyone seeing them would think he’s kissing Donghyuck on the lips. Donghyuck stops breathing and goes rigid in his arms, and for a moment all Mark can hear is the thundering of blood in his veins and Donghyuck's heartbeat, frantic and desperate against his own, and that’s when one of the soldiers barges into the room.

“Step out!”

Mark lets his mouth linger on Donghyuck’s cheek, at the corner of his lips, a moment more, as one of the hands on Donghyuck’s hips travel upwards, sneaking under the shirt to caress his stomach. Then, he summons his most annoyed expression and turns around.

“Is this urgent? Because we’re a little busy at the moment.”

The young guard, Taedong, Mark faintly recalls, looks at his prince, then at his prince’s husband, still huddled together in the cramped space, then he seems to notice Mark’s hand disappearing under Donghyuck’s blouse, their disheveled appearances, the way they both seem breathless, and his face completely changes color.

“Y-your Highness,” he stutters, voice unnaturally high, “we had no idea it was you, I swear! We were looking for some trespassers and…”

“Kim Taedong,” Mark says, his voice icy.

“Yes, sir!”

“Get out.”

The guard nods, twice, and scrambles away. Mark turns back to Donghyuck, who’s biting his lips to fight back a smile, and leans their forehead together, again.

“You owe me one,” he whispers, and Donghyuck lets the smile go with a soft laughter. They stare at each other, unmoving, and Mark is only faintly aware of his hand caressing Donghyuck’s stomach under the blouse, but Donghyuck shivers and licks at his lips and they’re too close for Mark to ignore it. He tries to disentangle himself, to put some distance between them because he can’t think, he can’t breathe, he only sees Donghyuck’s mouth and the tiniest hint of tongue inside it, but Donghyuck’s hands come to rest on the back of his head, keeping him close, and he parts his lips, eyes fixed on Mark’s mouth.

“You don’t have to do this,” Mark says, quickly, because he didn’t do all of this, _all of this_ , just to give Donghyuck the wrong impression. “You don’t have to give me anything back if you don’t want it. I didn’t mean you really owe me something…”

This time, Donghyuck is the one who covers his mouth with his palm.

“Don’t insult me please. My kisses are too precious to be bartered like that.”

Mark licks his palm, like Donghyuck did earlier with him, and when Donghyuck tries to take his hand away Mark traps it between his own and kisses it.

“Then what should a man do to be kissed by you?”

Donghyuck’s answer is the fluttering of lashes and the tightening of his hands on Mark’s nape, fingers threading between dark strands, tilting his head just right to allow their lips to meet, in an old, dirty storage room, the light of the sun hitting the dust and turning it to golden speckles, crumbles of sun floating all around them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: kissing, a goodbye, more kissing (?)


	10. x. the throat-burn of your cinnamon lips, the gentle unwinding of your voice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before we start, a little psa regarding the update schedule.  
> Yesterday, right before I updated, I received a comment I didn't really like. Now idk if the author was a troll or simply someone who was too excited about the update, but it really upset me to the point that I had to postpone the update. I felt so hurt that after pushing myself to update in time despite having only four days instead of the usual week, someone would call me out on being late. I didn't think it was necessary to remind any of my readers of this, but I am a real person with a real life. I have friends, family, cats, duties and I also have the right to enjoy my free time. I am doing my best to update this fic while on vacation, and yet anything can happen and I might be late for any reason, including not being inspired enough to write. It is in my right to be. The update schedule is tentative and if I don't respect is my business only. None of you is entitled to a chapter every Saturday, none of you has the right to ask me where is the chapter on Saturday night. I want to keep the comment box a stress-free space. If I'm stressed, I can't write. If I feel pressured, I can't write. If you want to know when I'm going to update, you can ask me politely (many people have asked before that comment and I have always answered, but asking when I'm going to update is different from demanding to know where's the update). I hope yesterday is the first and the last time something like that happens. Fics are like a gift, would you knock to a stranger's house and loudly, capslock-scream demand them to give you a gift? No, because it's really rude. So don't do that to me either.  
> On the other hand, the healthy, polite support I've received up until now has been amazing and it makes up for all the stress. It's very difficult for me to keep up with regular updates because I'm on vacation and my parents want to go on a trip every odd day, but all the comments here are really what motivates me, and they're almost overwhelming in how nice and enthusiastic they are, so thank you ;; also thank you to everyone who dropped a word on cc, here or on twitter yesterday, and told me it's fine to take my time ;;;;;; thank you really ;;
> 
> \- Art promo corner, twitter user @sunshyun made [ this amazing art](https://twitter.com/sunshyun/status/1152984145288675328) for a honeymouthed book, please give it a lot of love on Twitter ;; I love it a lot ;; Also if you ever feel like making art for this fic please let me know and I'll add it the to the thread of art on the notes at the beginning of the fic.  
> \- There might be typos in the fic, but I will edit them out. I also couldn't reply all the comments and ccs from chapter 9 ;; I'll try to do it as soon as possible but, again, thank you so much for your support. 
> 
> -[chapter title inspiration](https://avolitorial.tumblr.com/post/169636085167/bracketed-from-translation-by-anne-carson)

Donghyuck’s lips are eager, but clumsy. For all he talks bravely, for all he acts sure of himself – his mouth crashing against Mark’s almost too forcefully, almost like he was dying to do it – once they are kissing, Donghyuck doesn’t seem to know what to do. He falters, hands trembling where they’re linked on Mark’s nape, and then tries to walk back – he tries to walk back from a kiss he chose to initiate. Mark doesn’t let him.

 _You can’t do that,_ he wants to say, _you either want to kiss me or you don’t want it._

So he chases Donghyuck’s mouth as soon as their lips disconnect, pushing him back until he’s lying flush against the cabinet, and kisses him, dragonfly kisses, tentative and shallow and brief, just lips against lips, Mark’s hands running down Donghyuck’s sides, coaxing him into relaxing in his arms.

Donghyuck holds onto him, hands sliding down Mark’s nape to his back, clutching at the fabric like it’s a lifeline. And he kisses back, shyly at first – so uncharacteristically careful and wary, so not-Donghyuck, as if he hasn’t done this in so long he might have forgotten how to do it right – gaining confidence slowly, steadily, melting under Mark’s mouth.

Mark gasps when he licks Donghyuck’s lips and finds them parted for him, and he meets Donghyuck’s tongue instead. Donghyuck, too, gasps, high and airy, and from there it’s a blaze, erratic and messy and tentative, both of them too nervous to lead the kiss and too eager to wait, meeting in the middle with no finesse, no technique, just breathing in each other’s mouths when it gets too much and they have to slow down.

Donghyuck doesn’t taste sweet, not immediately. His lips are salty, like sweat, and the inside of his mouth has a metallic tingle, maybe blood, and Mark knows he himself must taste a little like the specks of dust surrounding them and a little like the dirt outside, but when he sucks on Donghyuck’s tongue he can feel is ozone and wet grass, like the fields after the rain at dawn, wind and sunshine finally piercing through the fog, and when Donghyuck hums in the kiss his voice trickles on Mark’s tongue, and it’s, of course, the sweet burn of honey and ruin.

Donghyuck spreads his legs to make space for Mark in the middle, and Mark slides in closer. He ruts against Donghyuck’s hardness, hips rolling more than thrusting, and it’s the sound Donghyuck lets out – a half-choked keen – and the way he rakes his nails on Mark’s shoulder blades, tearing at the fabric, the surge in his scent, tinged with arousal, like flowers burning on the pyre. It’s Donghyuck and the way his body is honest and yielding and welcoming and needy, and it just spurs Mark to kiss him harder, pinning him there with his teeth on Donghyuck’s lips and his hand against Donghyuck’s jaw and Donghyuck half-riding his leg, warmth pooling between their bodies.

Mark is vaguely aware of the people waiting for them outside, of having to give out explanations and excuses he doesn’t have – _I just wanted to spar with him, you have no idea how hot he gets when he’s threatening to slice someone open_ – but then Donghyuck bites his bottom lip, hard, hips stuttering against Mark’s, scent thickening like sugar in a pot, turning into salted caramel, and Mark realizes if they continue they are both going to come, in this old, dusty changing room that smells of other people’s sweat and the kind of intimidating pheromones only a bunch of adult Alpha can emit, and half of the palace guard standing behind that thin wall.

Donghyuck deserves better than this and Mark… Mark deserves answers.

Donghyuck’s eyes are squeezed shut, brows furrowed, lips pursed, falling open in a sigh when Mark lets him go, and Mark wants to dive back, but he can’t. He has something to ask and he’s so afraid of the answer – and yet, he’s a prince, he needs to be brave, he can’t be afraid. He kisses Donghyuck’s cheek and his eyelids and his temple, laying a last kiss on Donghyuck’s burnt gold hair and resting his nose there, where Donghyuck smells like fallen leaves and damp earth, like sweat and dirt and wildflowers blooming on the hills in the wrong season.

Donghyuck whines deep in his throat and turns his face to meet Mark’s mouth again.

“Wait,” Mark says, putting a finger on Donghyuck’s lips to stop him. “Wait.”

Donghyuck looks at him, and his eyes are glassy but wary, guarded, and Mark knows he will get upset now. He has to ask, still.

“I… I thought you didn’t want to kiss me,” he says, under his breath, almost wishing it was too low for Donghyuck to catch it, almost wishing he could take it back and knowing he can’t, he can’t – already bracing himself for whichever brand of heartbreak Donghyuck will be able to tailor just for him.

As expected, Donghyuck immediately opens his eyes. He squirms in Mark’s embrace, but at least he doesn’t look angry.

“It’s not like that…” He smacks his lips together, and since he’s Donghyuck he manages to act shy and annoyed at the same time. “Do we really have to talk about it now?”

“Yes, I think we… We need to. I like you. You know I do. And you said you don’t, so I really want to know why you changed your mind and kissed me.”

Donghyuck frowns, face tightening, and he looks cornered and fierce and ready to break Mark’s heart again, so Mark panics and leans over again for one last stolen kiss, soft and lingering, catching Donghyuck’s bottom lip between his own and sucking on it to shut him up, to make him stop hurting him.

“You like this, don’t you?” he says, as soon as he lets Donghyuck go, because he can’t allow him to talk first and say some other nonsense. He wants Donghyuck to be unable to deny, he wants Donghyuck to say _I like you too_. “And yet you don’t like me?”

“You think I’ve never liked you,” Donghyuck mutters, instead.

“Isn’t that the truth?”

Donghyuck looks at Mark’s face, at his jaw and his nose and up to his eyebrows, his gaze so heavy and focused Mark can almost feel it on his skin. He looks down again before he talks, ears flush.

“I do like you,” he says, very low, the voice of secrets and guilty confessions. “I know you think I don’t, but I like you, so I decided to kiss you. And yes, I liked it.”

Mark wants to feel happy, relieved, almost vindicated by the raw, sheer honesty in Donghyuck’s words. Donghyuck wouldn’t lie about this. Lee Donghyuck is many things, but he’s never been a liar. His mouth can’t lie, his eyes can’t lie and his scent, too, can’t lie, and Mark feels it darken like the midday sky after a summer fire, the smoke turning the air foggy-grey and hot and smelling like burnt flowers.

“But you don’t want to like me,” concludes Mark for him. “Why?”

“I… I don’t think it is a good idea… It cannot end well, for me, if I allow myself to like you.”

Someone knocks at the door before Mark can ask what he means – he desperately needs to know what Donghyuck means. They both jump, startled, and Mark hisses a curt, annoyed, “Not now!”

But then he hears Yukhei clearing his throat and, when he looks up, Zhoumi, the palace’s swordmaster, is standing next to him, looking thunderous.

“I’m sorry to interrupt your little escapade, Your Majesty, but the king has been demanding your presence back at the palace.”

“The king can wait, this is-”

“It’s a matter of the utmost importance, the prince of the Na Empire received an envoy coming from the border. We aren’t privy of the content, but the prince informed the king of his decision to leave the palace immediately.”

Mark curses Jaemin of the Na Empire, and the Na Empire, and Yukhei and Zhoumi and his father and even himself. He curses Donghyuck a little, in the privacy of his own mind, where words cannot hurt anyone else, because his husband seems to have all the luck on his side when it comes to escaping Mark’s questions.

“Give us a minute,” Mark answers, voice tight.

“Your Majesty…”

“A minute!”

Zhoumi sets his lips in a tight line of disapproval, but Mark glares back, defiant, so the man finally turns back and walks away, taking Yukhei with him.

“A minute,” Zhoumi repeats, like a warning, closing the door behind him and leaving Mark alone with a very deflated, still breathless Donghyuck.

Mark closes his eyes, trying to collect himself. He feels Donghyuck’s hands on his hair, threading the unruly strands between his fingers in a pitiful effort to make him appear more decent.

“I really need to go now, you heard them…” he murmurs, and Donghyuck nods.

“Of course.”

“Promise me we will talk about this,” Mark says, seeking for confirmation in Donghyuck’s eyes.

“I don’t…”

Mark’s fingers curl around his neck, tilting his face up, and Donghyuck visibly shudders at the touch, the bond tingling between them.

“I’m begging you, Donghyuck. You don’t have to tell me everything, but you told me you don’t like me that way and I’ve tried… I’ve tried to respect your decision and give you space but now _you_ kissed me and I don’t understand. You said you’re trying to protect yourself, but I can’t help you if you’re like this. Tell me things clearly, please.” He watches Donghyuck’s resolve crumble, until the other boy is nodding slightly.

“Promise?” Mark asks, his thumbs drawing circles on Donghyuck’s neck, keeping him from looking away.

“Promise.”

“I’ll see you later then?”

“I’ll be in the bedroom.”

Mark bites his bottom lip, finding it swollen and puffy, mirroring Donghyuck’s own lips.

“Donghyuck,” Mark says, “you might not believe it, but I am on your side. We’re on the same side, now.”

“I am on my own side only,” Donghyuck tries to say, and Mark kisses him again, one last time, breathtaking, insistent kisses on his mouth, because action speaks louder than words and Mark wants his kisses to mean, _Wherever you want to be, that’s the side I choose._

“Your Majesty, two minutes have passed.”

Mark pecks at Donghyuck’s lips one last time.

“Yeah, coming.”

 

 ❃

 

One of Jaemin’s servants looks up when Mark enters the room, unannounced, still wearing his training gear and the coldest expression he can muster while still looking polite enough to confer with royalty.

“Summon your master, would you.”

The Omega frowns, clearly on the verge of complaining about the breach of etiquette, but the prince himself appears under the arc that connects the living area to the bedrooms. He looks distracted, too nervous to summon the usual aura of self-importance he usually carries around him, but still pulls himself together when he sees Mark.

“Leave us, Yoojin,” he says, and the servant’s frown deepens.

“Your safety, Prince…”

“I’m still an esteemed guest of this household. I have nothing to fear from the Prince of the Vale, don’t I?”

His eyes regain a little bit of his usual bravado as he smirks down at Mark. The girl, Yoojin, gives her prince a warning glare and gets up, with a brief, “I’ll be in the other room if Your Grace needs me.”

Jaemin watches her leave before flopping on one of the sofas. He’s already wearing winter clothes, Mark notices – fur lined boots, thick pants, a woolen jacket with the lions of the Empire embroidered in gold on the front – probably in prevision of the harsh, cold snows of the border. He wonders if Jaemin will stop at Condor Peak, his earldom, right at the door of Mark’s kingdom, before proceeding towards the Empire.

“So what brings our very busy Crown Prince at my humble door?” Jaemin asks, and Mark has to stop himself from snorting, because the room Jaemin was assigned in virtue of his role as ambassador and prince of the Empire is nothing but humble. Also, it is not his room or his door, nor Mark is his prince.

“And straight out of training,” Jaemin continues. “I see. It must be something very urgent.”

“It must be very urgent, indeed, if you are leaving like this, completely disregarding our previous promise of supper together, Prince Jaemin.”

Jaemin’s scent sours for a moment, as he remembers their decision to meet in the afternoon, before he sweetens in a very dangerous way, thick and intense like blackberry wine.

“Ah, that’s a real pity. I was looking forward to seeing the Prince Consort one last time before we all parted ways.”

Mark tries to keep his smile, he does. He should be happy that Jaemin and his flirty smiles and his too many hands – Mark would gladly cut one of them, or both, because both of them have been on Donghyuck – are finally getting on a horse and going back to his home country. And yet, maybe it’s Jaemin’s last jab, maybe it’s the fact that Mark was almost getting somewhere with Donghyuck and he had to leave, giving his husband the time to collect his thoughts and rebuilds his walls, one by one. For once, Prince Mark of the Vale of the Giants, drops the formal facade.

“The real pity is that I will not personally be able to escort you to the end of my father’s kingdom, but I will still be elated to walk you to the gates of the castle and see you off,” he says, with a smile.

That, at least, seems to make Jaemin recover his shark-sharp smirk.

“Ah, are you perhaps feeling threatened, Your Highness? You know, your housemaids really have a penchant for chit-chatting, and lately the only topic they seem to talk about is gardening, specifically the right time to pick some very precious flowers.”

“I am more interested in how to keep pests out of the garden.”

Jaemin chuckles. “Harvest time is close, isn’t it? But any farmer would be able to tell you that maybe you should’ve planted your seeds earlier, if you wanted to get some kind of fruit, you know.”

Mark misses the solid weight of a sword at his side. It would look so nice at Jaemin’s throat.

“Whatever happens in my garden is not and will never be your business, Prince Jaemin. I am way more interested in what could be urgent enough to lure you away from my house, considering how much amusement you gain just from being here and challenging my authority by flirting with my husband.”

“Oh, so you are capable of being direct, Prince Mark.”

“Sometimes.”

Jaemin clicks his tongue, considering how much he can allow himself to reveal. He could choose not to say anything at all, but if Mark has learnt something from having him around all this time is that Jaemin of the Na Empire likes to talk.

“I am not sure myself why my father had such a dire need of me back in the capital, especially considering he’s aware of how much I actually dislike family bonding time, but if I had to make a wild guess…”

“Could it have something to do with the raids of the rebels at the borders?” Mark asks. His father talked about that only a couple of days ago, but he knows from Yukhei who heard it from his father that there’s been another breach of their borders just yesterday night.

Jaemin’s eyes narrow, and for a moment he drops his lazy, effortlessly annoying facade to stare at Mark without any kind of mockery in his face.

“It could,” he says slowly. “It could be anything, but I wouldn’t lie if I said that those raids worry me.”

“They say the son of one of the lords your father beheaded is riding with the rebels.”

Jaemin scoffs. “Even if it was true, he would be a pawn and nothing else. That man was an idiot and the son is no different.” He hums a little, eyes not leaving Mark. “You are indeed an endless source of amusement, Prince Mark, and you were right, I had a lot of fun testing your patience until today. Also, Prince Donghyuck is as lovely as I always imagined him to be.”

“Skip the pleasantries, if possible.”

“Oh, don’t I love when you go all Alpha on me,” Jaemin coos. “But since you have done me the favor of your honesty, I shall reciprocate by revealing you something that not even your father’s spies might know, in virtue of our future friendship.”

Mark wants to roll his eyes at the words _future friendship_ , but Jaemin of the Na Empire is as powerful as he is annoying, and he is indeed offering him some intelligence. Jaemin leans towards Mark over the coffee table, lowering their voice.

“We have nothing to do with the raids and indeed, since they’re happening so close to Condor Peak, my father might choose to involve me in their suppression. But what I’ve heard from my steward in Condor Peak on my way to your kingdom is very interesting. The few survivors of the incursions said that some of the raiders are wildlings of the West, white barbarians from the territories beyond the Empire.”

“White barbarians?”

Mark blinks, confused. The savage riders of the West have been pushed back by the dark-skinned tribes who live beyond the borders of the Empire for centuries. The last time one of them was seen in the Vale of the Giant might have been during Mark’s grandfather’s reign, during a diplomatic visit.

“Are you sure about this, Jaemin?” Mark says, dropping the formalities. Jaemin opens his mouth to answer but he’s stopped by the other servant of his, who enters the room like she owns it and glares at her own prince.

“My prince, you have talked too much and it is now time to leave.”

Jaemin sighs, dropping the formal mask to go back to his lazy, arrogant smile.

“Well, it seems like it’s time for me to make your wish come true, Prince Mark. Take me to the gates of your castle.”

 

❃

 

Mark watches Prince Jaemin leave the precinct of the city at sunset, riding down the royal road in a crest of crimson dust, surrounded by a convoy of knights of the Vale. At East, the sky is already brindle with purple clouds, looming over the dying crimson light of the sun. Mark wonders how Donghyuck spent his day, all alone in their chambers, waiting for Mark while the entire palace prepared for the departure of their dangerous guest.

Gongmyung of the Kim clan, royal advisor and brother of one of Mark’s closest friends, clears his throat.

“Your Majesty. The king has summoned you to his rooms. He wishes to discuss the departure of the Imperial Prince with you.”

“Tell him I will have an audience with him tomorrow.”

Gongmyung blinks, confused. “I don’t think it was a request, Your Majesty.”

Mark bites back a curt answer, because Gongmyung doesn’t deserve his annoyance.

“Nor mine was a refusal,” he replies. “But I have something urgent to talk about with the Prince Consort and I do deem it more urgent than everything else, including the departure of Prince Na Jaemin, and yet I still attended because that’s what my father required of me. Now I wish to retire to my rooms.”

“The king…”

“The king will have to show us his understanding, Gongmyung. If he complains, tell him I don’t feel well.”

From the way Gongmyung is looking at him, he’s not far from believing the lie himself. Mark has never refused a meeting with his father, nor questioned his authority in any way. But it’s late and he’s tired and the bond makes his limbs ache like he’s been climbing up a million stairs, all alone, his whole life. Is this feeling the Longing the palace physician was talking about? If it is, it sucks, and Mark wants to see his mate right now, he wants to touch Donghyuck, he wants to hear him sing.

Mark leaves the young lord Kim on the battlements, standing among the square, stern shadows of the merlons. He runs past the guards, down, to the courtyard, where his horse is waiting for him. The city is always swarming with people, converging outside, on the main streets, to catch the last minutes of sunlight. Everyone seems to be out to keep Mark from reaching the palace, and his knees close around the hips of his ride, spurring him to trot through the crowd.

When he finally dismounts off his horse, leaving it in the hands of a groom in the courtyard, the sky is already dark, and too overcast to even be able to see the stars. Only the moon is peeking, a new moon, pale and thin and shy, hiding behind the grey, misty veil.

Donghyuck is looking at it, too, perched on the windowsill and hugging his legs, the light of the flames washing over his skin like an ember undertow. He looks up when Mark enters the room, leaning his chin on his knees and blinking sleepily.

“You’re late,” he says. Then, frowning, “And you stink.”

Well, that hurts.

“I’m sorry, for how much he seemed to be in a hurry, Prince Jaemin really took his time leaving.”

“So I heard.”

“Let me take a quick bath. I will join you for dinner, if you still haven’t eaten.”

Donghyuck shakes his head and quickly jumps down on the floor, his naked feet making no sound then they touch the marble. He’s wearing one of Mark’s capes over a wide shift and underpants, and Mark has seen him naked more than once but he can’t help but think he looks more scandalous now than when he’s wearing nothing, because no lord or lady in the Vale would just lounge around in their undergarments.

Donghyuck clearly doesn’t care about loungewear fashion in the Vale, for he picks up a candle from their bedside and walks past Mark and into their shared bathroom, pulling on the braided rope to ask the servants downstairs to send them some hot water.

“Do you intend to stay here with me?” Mark asks, suddenly feeling self-conscious, when water starts filling the large pool.

Donghyuck stops in the middle of lighting up all the candles with the one he brought from the bedroom, and stares at Mark sharply. “Should I leave?”

Before he can move, Mark’s hand closes like a vice around his wrist, keeping him there. “No, please. Stay.”

Donghyuck tugs to free himself of Mark’s hold, and Mark lets him after a second of resistance. He watches Donghyuck check the water temperature with a flick of his hands, his cheeks and ears pink.

“You should undress,” Donghyuck says, curtly, and Mark snaps out of his trance and quickly gets rid of his clothes, sliding in the water before Donghyuck can look at him. He’s not looking at Donghyuck either, and that’s why his heart almost beats out of his chest when he realizes Donghyuck is stepping in the half-empty pool with him, still in his undergarments, the large, unbuttoned shirt fanning out around him like a trail.

“Turn around,” Donghyuck commands, and Mark does as he’s told, letting out a sigh when Donghyuck starts lathering his hair, spreading the scent of lavender around the room.

The bathroom is dark, the candles barely tugging at the thick veil of black shrouding the walls. It is also silent, save for the water drops trickling from the faucet to the surface of the water, the sloshing of the water against their naked shoulders, and the soft rustling of Donghyuck’s fingers massaging Mark’s scalp.

Mark closes his eyes, hums in appreciation. When he speaks, his voice echoes from wall to wall, tangled in the humidity of the room.

“Will you finally talk, now that I can’t look at your face?”

Donghyuck pettily pulls at his hair and Mark jumps, water splashing all around them. He feels Donghyuck’s hands fall from his head to his back, spreading suds all over his shoulders, tracing the bumps in his spine with his thumbs. He squirms and leans back until the wet fabric of Donghyuck’s undergarments is clinging to his naked skin and Donghyuck’s breath is hot on his nape. Donghyuck rests his head in the crook of Mark’s shoulder, hands intertwined on Mark’s chest, for a moment. Mark can feel Donghyuck’s chest rise and fall, snug against Mark’s back, and he can feel him swallow, he can hear the smack of his lips, dotted by the drops trickling down from the faucet in the tingly, chime-like sounds that echo on the water in concentric circles. He can feel the moment Donghyuck decides to talk, right before he does, because his whole body tenses around Mark’s, and his hands shake where they are clasped together on Mark’s heart, and his heart beats like a crazy drum against Mark’s back.

“You told my sister you loved her once,” Donghyuck says, and his voice fills the pool and the room, his voice fills Mark’s chest like music inside a sound box.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter: will mark get his answers or will every single word he's ever said when he was a dumb teenager be used against him? D:


	11. xi. nor anything sweeter than desire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am actually very nervous about this chapter because it's about a first time and I have a terrible relationship with first times, plus I've rewritten that scene so many times that I don't even know what to think about it, but I am not too displeased about how the final result. There's a /lot/ of things going on in this chapter, it's the longest I've ever written for this fic and it's also very rated, and unbetaed, and so rated I'm not sure I'll be able to read it again in order to review it now or ever.  
> -art promotion corner belongs to miss yaori94, just like my heart: [❃](https://twitter.com/yaori94/status/1157721786416603137)  
> -I have made a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5CWy7SVtAsr5c9vGnGyI3b) for this fic, this is the [thread](https://twitter.com/aprilclaws/status/1156324062047670272) on twitter where I'll add the songs for every chapter before the update, for everyone who might be interested.  
> -I've started replying the comments but it's probably going to take the rest of the day so, as usual, I'm updating first and replying later ;; I will try to answer all the comments for chapter 11 before I update this time, I promise ;; But I want to say thank you for the incredible support, as usual. Thank you for defending me and my right to just forget about updates and thank you for assuring me you'll wait if I need more time. I cleared things with that reader and I'm glad I talked about it because they reached out and all is well. (Still, try to always be nice when commenting <3 ) You're all fantastic readers and the level of engagement makes me super happy and motivated, so thank you for encouraging me so much ;;  
> Happy reading!
> 
> -[chapter title inspiration](https://avolitorial.tumblr.com/post/185569972447/a-belated-birthday-gift-for-verilies)

Mark was seventeen years old when he told Dongsoon of the Southern Islands he loved her.

He remembers that day very well, a spring day, the air sprinkled with pollen, the boulevards around the palace sprinkled with fallen petals. Dongsoon spread on his bed, her long, blond hair, so similar to her brother’s, falling on Mark’s pillows like ears of wheat under the sharp flash of a sickle. Her lips were red with rouge and her skin was glowing with mother-of-pearl powder and her chest was full, heaving up and down, nervous, and soft under Mark’s palm, and she was pretty in a way her brother never was – in a way her brother would never be. She had let Mark hold her, put his hands on her waist, and he had felt her body tense under his touch, familiar, warm, and yet so alien. He had felt awkward and inexperienced, a boy climbing over the body of a princess like it was a mountain, insurmountable, fraught with peril. He had kissed Dongsoon because he didn’t know what else to do with his mouth, and he had told her he loved her when he had realized that not even kissing felt right.

“You told my sister you loved her once,” Donghyuck says, and Mark cringes and wonders why everything he’s ever said always turns against him, how can Donghyuck take every single one of his words and sharpen it into a weapon, stabbing both himself and Mark with it.

“Did she tell you?” Mark asks, under his breath.

Donghyuck doesn’t answer, just takes a deep breath. His heart hammers against Mark’s back through the wet fabric. Water sloshes around them. It feels like they’re an island in the middle of the ocean, eroded by the riptide, sieged by salt and water and their own past.

“Was it true?”

Mark closes his eyes.

“Does it change anything?”

“Not really. If you were honest with her, you’re lying to me. If you lied to her, you might be lying to me as well.”

“And which one do you think it is?”

Donghyuck tries to pull back his hands and Mark stops them with his own, traps them against his heart and hopes Donghyuck can feel his heartbeat. The heart doesn’t lie, if only Donghyuck was willing to listen.

“I think you were lying,” Donghyuck replies, in the end. “You never loved my sister. I’m sure she knew that as well, for she never loved you either. I think both of you were trying to do the best for our countries, and I think you wanted to like her because that’s what the Vale needed you to do.”

This time, when he tries to take his hand back, Mark lets him. He turns around though, because he wants Donghyuck to see him as he says it. He wants to see Donghyuck as he answers.

“What about you? Do you think I like you?”

Donghyuck physically draws back, and the waves he’s provoking with his movement break against his collarbones, and the white fabric of the shirt cling against the lines of his body, made see-through by the water. He shakes his head and a single drop trickles from his chin into the water.

“I don’t know,” he murmurs. “I’ve spent so many years hating you, but now I wonder who was that person I was always looking at. I cannot understand what you think. Sometimes, I feel like I don’t know you at all.” He pauses, eyes narrowing. “Why are you smiling?”

And Mark hadn’t even realized he was smiling. He chuckles, looking down, at the trembling surface of the water, shiny and heavy with bath oil. “Because you hated me so much that I’m sure your opinion of me couldn’t have been worse, hence it must have improved.”

Donghyuck slaps the water, splashing Mark with a pout.

“As if,” he mutters.

“It’s the same for me, I don’t understand you. Half of the time you’re like,” Mark bites his bottom lip. _A riddle, a mystery. A summer storm, showing up unannounced to drench me to the bone, thundering and roaring and tearing the flowers from my hand, disappearing as soon as I find a shelter, leaving me to deal with this unbearable heat again, alone._ “You’re complicated. And I want to understand you, so badly Donghyuck.”

Mark scoots closer, but Donghyuck stops him, eyes shutting close, almost like he hopes Mark will disappear if he can’t see him.

“Don’t,” he murmurs, but Mark was waiting for it. One step forward, but it’s time for the two steps back.

“Why?”

“Because this, us, is something that was forced on us. If we can grow to love it, we can also grow to hate it, but we’ll have to live in this cage regardless, forever.” Donghyuck opens his eyes again, and the light of the candles bounces from the water to his face, drawing faint orange ghosts on his cheeks, making him look haunted. He inches back, towards the end of the pool.

“People fall in and out of love all the time, they stay together or part ways, but you,” he murmurs, bracing himself, as if suddenly cold, “you will stay, and even if you love me now, your love will turn into dust, and I… I don’t want to go through that. If you don’t matter to me, you cannot hurt me. You have no idea, how incredibly easy it is, to hurt me.”

One of the candles flickers and dies as a cold draft enters the room, and Donghyuck’s whole body seems to shrink into the darkness, his contours becoming vague, blurred. Mark wants to touch him, to make sure he’s still there. He wants to hug him, to remind him Mark is still there. He looks so hurt.

“Are you afraid of me?” Mark asks, and Donghyuck’s eyes thunder. A summer downpour, indeed. But Mark is already drenched, he’s not afraid of Donghyuck’s fury, he’s ready to worship the storm like a sailor stranded alone in the middle of the calm sea.

“I’m not afraid of anything,” Donghyuck answers, but it’s not true. Donghyuck really can’t lie, not to an Alpha – not to _his_ Alpha.

“You _are_ afraid. Since you have come to this palace, everything you’ve done was desperately trying to keep me away. You’re lonely, I can see it, and you’re craving for my touch all the time, but as soon as I try to get close, you run away. You’re afraid, Donghyuck. You’re afraid of me, because you know I’m not lying and I truly, genuinely like you, and you’re afraid of yourself, because you know that, deep down, you like me too.”

Donghyuck tries to crawl back again, but his back hits the tiled wall of the pool. His eyes widen as he realizes there’s nowhere left to go. Mark tugs him down, a little, so that he’s sitting against the edge, the water licking at his chest, his eyes big wide, darker than the darkness, and full of reflected light, like wells at night. Mark spreads Donghyuck’s legs, feeling wet cotton instead of the soft skin under his hands. He claws at it, annoyed, and Donghyuck spreads himself more, for him, his body blossoming like a water lily under Mark’s hands, instinct overwriting instinct, stay, run away, _feel_.

Mark kneels in front of him, his hands tracing Donghyuck’s body, slipping under the large, evanescent fabric of his top and lingering at his sides. He can barely smell Donghyuck under the scented water, but he recognizes the telltale signs of arousal in him, short breath, flushed skin, glazed eyes. His fingers clutch nervously at the tiles, trying, helplessly, to find purchase. They slide down on the moisture, leaving a glowy trace on the vapor that covers everything like a veil.

“I will not kiss you unless you tell me you want me to,” Mark whispers, leaning down, and they’re so close, and yet the only place they’re connected is where his hands are anchored on Donghyuck’s hips. “And I won’t fuck you unless you want me to. Tell me you like me, Donghyuck.”

Donghyuck breathes, heavy and wet, and shakes his head, and he squirms, unable to put some distance between him and Mark, delirious for his touch, pinned there like a butterfly on framed crystal.

“I like you so much,” Mark continues, “I’ve liked you since I saw you at the wedding.”

Donghyuck shivers, and Mark’s hands climb his body like the stairs of a temple, flicking his nipples, and Donghyuck thrashes a little at the sudden pang of pleasure, splashing water all around him, body tumbling down now that his hands are not holding onto the edge but in front of his mouth, to trap a cry, to trap the words Mark so desperately wants to hear.

“You have no idea, this morning, how pretty you looked while you fought, you looked like sunrise.” _Like glory and ruin,_ he thinks to himself. “I want to see that every day. I want you. I want you to want me too.”

“Don’t,” says Donghyuck, and maybe he’s crying, maybe his face was already wet from the humidity of the room. His voice sounds choked, his hands still clasped in front of his mouth.

“I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do. If you really hate this, I won’t force you. If you want us to live as strangers and only fuck during your heat or my rut, to give birth to an heir or two and never touch each other again, I can give that to you. If you hate me so much you can’t even do that, if you want to go back to the Islands,” Mark closes his eyes, squeezes them shut, and he can hear and feel Donghyuck gasp even if he can’t see him, “I can arrange that too. I can give you everything you want, everything in my power. You only have to ask.”

When he opens his eyes again, Donghyuck is staring at him, all wet and lost and beautiful. _What are we doing?_ Mark thinks. _What am I doing? I would really break the alliance between our kingdoms if he asked. The Goddess help me, I would._

Donghyuck cups Mark’s face with shaky hands. His bottom lip, too, is trembling. He swallows.

“I don’t trust you. I will never, ever trust you.” He locks his ankles on Mark’s back, drawing him closer, close enough to kiss. “But, heavens and hells, I do like you, Prince Mark of the Vale of the Giants, Minhyung, My Alpha. My king.”

 

❃

 

Donghyuck is a shy kisser and a silent lover. Where Mark thought he would’ve been bold and thunderous, like he is with a sword, with a bow, with his silver tongue, with anything he can use to kill someone – and he can use many things to kill someone – under his hands Donghyuck yields, his body soft and spread and blossoming, not a weapon but a wild flower growing, careless and oblivious, at the side of a battlefield.

He lets Mark kiss his words away, hands clutching at his shoulder blades, ankles locked at the small of Mark’s back, drawing him closer with a push of his heels. Mark kisses his lips and his chin and his cheekbones, and his fluttering lashes, and when he strokes Donghyuck’s stiff cock through the wet fabric he kisses his sharp hiss too.

Their bodies slide against each other awkwardly, like the wrong pieces of a puzzle, and Mark draws back, disentangling himself from Donghyuck’s hold.

“Wait,” he murmurs. “Let me…”

He tries to manhandle Donghyuck on his lap, but Donghyuck wriggles and shakes his head. “I don’t like this,” he says, under his breath, making Mark freeze.

“The position?” he asks, and Donghyuck shakes his head.

“Here, in the water. Let’s get this to the bed?”

Mark exhales slowly, relieved. For a moment, he had thought Donghyuck had changed his mind on liking him. But if it’s just a change of scenery he wants, that Mark can do, and gladly.

“Alright, alright.”

He stands up in a waterfall of dripping water, watches Donghyuck pull himself up as well. His undergarments are glued to his body and he struggles to get rid of the wet, cold embrace of the open shirt. He almost trips, but he manages to peel the pants down as well, and then he’s standing there, naked, barefoot in a puddle of water still trickling down his body, shivering despite the warm, humid air. He braces himself, probably feeling too exposed.

“Are we going?” he mutters. He’s nervous, Mark realizes. There’s some sort of tension running through his body today, like a fever. It reminds Mark of the boy who stood naked in the middle of their bed, the night of their wedding ceremony. The way he was so afraid to be fucked, the way he offered himself anyway – like a martyr volunteering for the flogging, like being with Mark is a punishment, but one he deserves.

Mark frowns, pausing to grab a towel and extending it towards Donghyuck.

“Dry yourself first, don’t want you to catch another cold.”

Donghyuck shakes his head like a small, angry dog. “I’m dry, come on.”

“Why are you in such a hurry?”

“It’s just… The faster we do it, the faster I’ll know how it is. I don’t like not knowing what to expect.”

Mark takes the towel from his hands and sloppily wraps it around his shoulders.

“Dry yourself first.”

Donghyuck retaliates by stealing the one Mark has around his neck and using it to rub Mark’s hair harshly until they’re not dripping wet anymore.

“Can we go now?” he repeats, and Mark sighs and holds the curtains open for him.

“After you.”

Their bedroom has fallen into darkness in their absence. All the candles have died and the moon is too thin, her light not bright enough to see, but Donghyuck still stops Mark from going back and finding a candle, or asking one from the maids downstairs.

“Come here,” he says instead, falling back down on the bed and pulling Mark with him, on top of him. “Let’s… let’s do this.”

They fumble uncoordinatedly, nervously, blindly, and Donghyuck’s kisses taste like haste, like nerves, and everything is too harsh, too dry, too fast, too much. Mark struggles to separate his nervousness and Donghyuck’s, spiking so high it’s almost panic right now. It’s like Donghyuck is tumbling down a ravine, gravity and momentum spinning him like a ragdoll with nothing but soft flesh and honey skin to protect his bird bones from the impact with the rocks. Donghyuck is tumbling down and holding Mark’s hand as he does, rutting against his cock and licking at the seam of his lips and gasping against his skin, and Mark is tumbling down with him.

“Wait,” Mark says, breathless and it is Donghyuck’s turn to freeze, limbs turning to stone like the giants of the legends at the first light of sunrise. But it’s too early for sunrise, and Mark links their fingers together, bring Donghyuck’s hand to his mouth to kiss his knuckles.

“You’re too tense,” he murmurs. “What are you afraid of?”

“I’m not afraid,” Donghyuck lies, again, but Mark pinches his side.

“I will not sleep in a bed of lies,” he warns, half-jokingly, soothing Donghyuck’s skin tenderly to reassure him. After that there’s a moment of dark, tense silence, and then Donghyuck’s voice, thin, low, and maybe laced with fear.

“They say taking a knot hurts like hell when you’re not in heat.”

“Oh,” Mark murmurs, squeezing Donghyuck’s fingers. Donghyuck weakly squeezes back, and lets himself fall back on the cushion, awaiting Mark’s judgment.

“I won’t knot you today, Donghyuck,” Mark says, and Donghyuck props himself up on his elbows, his frown so deep Mark can see it even in the almost imperceptible light entering from the window.

“You should,” Donghyuck says, nonchalantly, as if he’s not on the verge of a panic attack just by thinking about it. “Everyone keeps complaining that we’re not even trying to make a baby.”

On another occasion, Mark would have smiled at the expression Donghyuck used. _Make a baby_ , it sounds so young and soft in his mouth, so different from what the rest of the court has to say on the matter. (Either the polite, cold _conceive_ of the court ladies or the crude, gross _breed_ Mark usually hears from the lords.) On another occasion, Mark would have leaned down and kissed Donghyuck’s nose, getting an annoyed giggle from him, and he would have said, “Let’s make a baby, then.”

Today, he bites his tongue to keep a curse from spilling and says, “Well, I’m rather tired of the way everyone in this realm seems to have something to say regarding our marriage. They can find their own Omega to impregnate. You married me, not my country.”

“But you married me for your country, and I did it for mine.”

“Isn’t it already enough that they controlled our lives like this? I’m your husband, not them. Are you going to let the whole Vale fuck you then, Donghyuck?”

“Are you going to let them?”

It’s scary how easy it is from Donghyuck to get under Mark’s skin, but if there’s something that Mark has learnt through the past few months with him is that Donghyuck always looks for conflict because he knows how to win a fight, and there’s no faster way to throw him off than refusing to fight.

“Don’t joke about this. I like you too much to let anyone else touch you, and you know it,” Mark says, and it is so honest it’s disarming, and Donghyuck squirms, confused, not really sure how to react. His scent tingles, tinted with that fragrant undertone that only appears when he’s secretly pleased and a little embarrassed.

“Then you should touch me yourself,” he mumbles, and Mark would laugh at that, if not for the way he can still smell the anxiety souring Donghyuck’s scent.

“Do you want me to? Do you _really_ want me to? I’ve waited for so long, I wouldn’t mind waiting a little more, you know? It’s the reason…” He bites his bottom lip, suddenly reluctant to talk. “It’s one of the reasons I didn’t touch you, during our wedding night. I want it to be good. I don’t want to do anything you don’t want me to do.”

“It is in your right to take everything you want from me,” Donghyuck says, voice low.

“And it is my duty to do it, but you don’t like the idea of me doing it for duty the way I dislike the idea of taking something from you by right. I know you’re scared today, I can feel it, just like I could feel it that night. I can’t understand why, though.”

Donghyuck seems to think about it, and he tilts his head hesitantly towards Mark in the end, his fingers curling around Mark’s shoulder.

“I know it’s going to hurt like hell this time, even if you don’t knot me. Everyone told me, the physician and the priest who examined me when I presented, and even my mother’s healer… They said my body might not react as well as other Omegas’, because I’m a late bloomer, so it will probably hurt a lot until I get used to it. I’m…” Scared, he doesn’t say, but Mark hears it anyway. “I’ve never done this and I don’t know how to do it. But I want to do it. I’ve wanted… for so long, and so much. Sometimes it feels like you don’t really want me, it feels like I’m the only one wanting, because you’re always so controlled about it.”

And Mark would laugh at that, because he’s wanted Donghyuck since the beginning but it won’t settle for taking what he can just because he can. It took him months just to get Donghyuck to admit he wants him back, and the thought of Donghyuck agonizing over the same thing feels like a fever dream.

He leans down to kiss his husband’s nose. “I know you said you don’t trust me, and you never will, but please, this time, trust me.” _I like you so much your name is the only word in my head sometimes. I like you like I like the sunrise, the smell of flowers, the salt of the blue sea. Trust me, please._ “I want to do this too, I’ve wanted you for so long, Donghyuck, but I don’t want- I can’t hurt you.”

“There’s nothing you can do about that,” Donghyuck argues, his voice still tiny.

“There’s a lot I can do about that, actually. If you’re not ready or if you feel like it’s too much we can go slower, or we can stop altogether.” Mark finds Donghyuck’s hand from where it’s clamped on the sheets and kisses it again, turning it afterwards to nose at the vein on Donghyuck’s wrist, his scent so bright Mark can almost see it, a beacon in the darkness. “I swear on my honor I won’t hurt you tonight.”

“So if I ask you to stop…?”

“We stop. I give you a blowjob, we go to sleep.”

There’s another moment of silence, Mark’s heart beating like crazy as he fails to read Donghyuck’s expression in the shadows, Donghyuck still uncomfortably tense in his arms. But then he opens his mouth and something in Mark’s chest swells in relief as he literally hears the smile in his shaky, nervous words, as he feels the resolution flood their bond, sweet like nectar.

“That’s a deal I can’t really refuse now, can I?”

 

❃

 

“I’m nervous too,” Mark confesses, as he experimentally runs a hand on the inner part of Donghyuck’s thigh, where he knows he will be sensitive and a little ticklish. Donghyuck gasps, a little startled, but the touch feels right this time, his scent intense and clean, his body still tense but tingling with pleasure.

When he recovers, he glances at Mark sideways.

“Are you? It doesn’t feel like you are.”

Mark smiles, circling Donghyuck’s rim with his index fingers, spreading him open with the other hand.

“I’m always nervous when I’m with you,” he says, letting the first finger slip inside. _If I say or do the wrong thing you might get angry or hurt, and I never know exactly what is it that upsets you until I’ve already done it._ “To be honest, you scare me a little.”

Donghyuck doesn’t answer with words, but reaches for Mark’s mouth, and Mark just lets himself be kissed, barely responding, too focused on slowly working Donghyuck open with his fingers. It’s hot and it’s slick, but not as much as it will be during Donghyuck’s heat, and Mark has to smear his fingers in scented oil to make the slide easier, smiling when Donghyuck clamps down on them, breath caught in his throat.

Mark’s cock is hard and heavy between his legs, but there’s no urgence, not the kind that would have him grow a knot easily. He takes his fingers out and cleans them on Donghyuck’s belly, digging one into his bellybutton. Donghyuck hisses.

“Sensitive?” Mark asks, and tugs at Donghyuck’s cock too, teasingly, and Donghyuck retaliates by pulling himself up on his elbows and inverting their position, sitting on Mark’s thighs and rolling one of Mark’s nipples between his fingers, making him moan and slap his hand away.

It’s easy, from there, to kiss a little more, to rut against each other, rolling on the bed like little kids fighting to be on top, Mark’s finger light on Donghyuck’s cock and Donghyuck’s teeth sharp against his shoulder.

“Are you going to do it or not?” Donghyuck asks, when Mark manages to pin him down again. He spreads his legs a little more when Mark nudges his cock between Donghyuck’s thighs. “I’m going to come before you even put it in if you keep this up.”

“You can, if you want. We have all night.”

Donghyuck shakes his head, a rustle of fabric Mark can hear more than see in the half-light. He pulls Mark down by his hair, spreads his legs for him, arching his back so he’s rubbing his bottom against whatever he can reach of Mark. His face is clouded, his expression hidden.

“You have to tell me, Donghyuck. If it hurts – it is probably going to hurt, but...”

“Yes,” Donghyuck says, and he sounds so breathless, so broken already, waiting for Mark to put him back together.

“No, promise me.”

“Yes, I will tell you. Now, would you… please.”

So Donghyuck too, is capable of begging, Mark thinks, struggling to hold himself together. He really is nervous, maybe as nervous as Donghyuck is. Last time, the only time he had sex like this, he was in a rut. He has little memories of what happened, he just knows that it was as easy as breathing.

 _Easy?_ he thinks, as he holds Donghyuck open, driving his cock inside him for the first time. _There’s nothing easy in this._

It’s slow and difficult, and shallow at first, because Donghyuck is too tense, too nervous, too in pain to do nothing else but to try and get Mark’s cock out of him, and Mark, Mark is desperately trying not to bottom out, desperate for friction, drenched with sweat. Donghyuck lets out a muffled whine, the loudest sound he’s let out in all their endeavours. It’s out of pain more than pleasure, and it makes Mark stills immediately, his body tense like the string of a bow, every muscle shaking. He can feel Donghyuck, all wrapped around him, so tight his heartbeat is pulsing on his cock, his body refusing to adjust to the intrusion.

“You have to relax,” Mark murmurs, “breathe, Donghyuck.”

“Can’t,” Donghyuck exhales. He thrashes on the spot, his chest heaving harshly like there’s not enough air for him in the world.

“You can. You’re my perfect Omega, so good, too good for me.”

“I can’t,” Donghyuck repeats, higher, so close to crying, and he sobs, shakes, and Mark shakes with him. It’s so difficult to keep himself still, all his Alpha instincts telling him that the only way to get out of this stuck, panicky phase, would be to just fuck Donghyuck until he stops hurting, until his body submits. He knows it would, eventually, because he’s an Omega, and Mark is an Alpha – his Alpha – and Donghyuck’s body bears the imprint of his bite, his claim, and it will sing just for him, crave his touch only for the rest of their human lives. But Mark has always been able to take, with Donghyuck, and not once he has. He wants Donghyuck to give – to give until Mark has all of him, to stay, out of his own will, not like something that can be stolen – so he lets go of Donghyuck’s hips to trail his fingers up, his hips, his chest, cupping his face.

“Yes, you can. You’re the strongest boy I’ve ever met Donghyuck, Omega or not. You’re strong enough to take me down in battle, you can do this too. You can do everything.”

Donghyuck squeezes around him, impossibly tight, impossibly tense, and then swallows another sob and finally starts to relax, his body clenching and unclenching at the rhythm of his breathing.

“Like this, sunshine. Breathe.”

Mark leans even closer, lets Donghyuck nose at his scent gland, knowing it’ll make him feel safe, and sneaks a hand between their bodies to thumb at the head of Donghyuck’s soft cock, fisting it until it grows in his hands again.

“Can I?” he asks, and Donghyuck whispers a _yes_ , and Mark can finally pull back and thrust in again, the slide easier this time, deeper, faster. Donghyuck still winces, he still twitches and squirms and gasps, but holds onto Mark to keep him close, drowning him in pheromones, and his body starts to give in, to make space for Mark, lighting up from the inside with white and golden fire.

“Fuck,” Mark curses when his rhythm falters. Donghyuck’s skin is too slippery and inside he’s still too tight and the angle is not right, keeping him from reaching as deep as he wants, as deep as he needs to. “Let me…”

He slows down for a moment ignoring Donghyuck’s cry of dismay to lean over his heated body, trying to reach one of the pillows. He underestimated his husband thought, because Donghyuck glares at him, visibly unhappy with the lack of rhythm, and arcs his back just as Mark reaches behind him, and Mark hits so deep inside him his mind blanks out. Beyond the screen of pleasure and fire he can barely hear Donghyuck’s moan, high pitched and loud enough the entire tower probably heard it.

“You…” he says, grinding inside Donghyuck with all his weight, “are such an impossible little brat.”

And Donghyuck keens and quivers laughs at him – and Mark really isn’t doing his job if Donghyuck still has enough cheek to laugh.

“Raise your hips up,” he orders, when he finally manages to get the pillow. He sticks it under Donghyuck’s bottom, and then spreads his legs even wider to accommodate his cock. This time, he thrust deeper, easier, slicker, as Donghyuck’s body finally catches up and melts around him, as his scent explodes like a cloud of pollen, heady, overwhelming, as his voice trickles over their bodies, like warm honey, flower wine, a chant of Mark’s name. Donghyuck’s eyes flutter closed, his lithe body writhing around Mark’s as the pace picks up.

“Touch me,” he chokes out, and it’s an order. Mark has only enough sense left to sneak a hand between their bodies and tug, once, twice, Donghyuck’s scent engulfing them, and that’s when Mark realizes, without a doubt, that he needs to pull out now, because his knot is starting to swell, dragging around Donghyuck’s insides.

“Fuck,” he says, and Donghyuck’s body unconsciously realizes what he’s trying to do because his walls clamp around him, trying to keep him inside. But Mark can’t let this happen, no matter how much his own nature is screaming at him to just let it happen. He pulls, ripping himself away from Donghyuck’s wet heat, forcing Donghyuck’s rim open as his knot catches against it for a long, terrifying moment before it wrenches free, and Donghyuck lets out the squeakiest, most broken moan of his life and comes all over himself, his rim pitifully clenching on nothing.

The curtain of clouds fall open for them, and the moon shines for a moment on his face, silver light cascading like a blessing on his damp hair and swollen lips, on his dark, dazed eyes, the iris drowned in black, on his flushed cheeks, flushed chest, splattered and sticky with his own come, and Mark’s palm tighten around his cock, and that’s all it takes, a flick of his wrist, and he’s spilling on Donghyuck’s twitching thighs and stomach and rising chest. He collapses next to Donghyuck, on uncomfortably damp sheets, too spent to even long for a kiss.

The last thing he remembers before he drifts away, is the strangest, dreamiest conversation. Donghyuck’s voice, scratchy and used in the best way. His own, mumbling, on the verge of sleep.

“Is it always like this?” Donghyuck asks.

“It’s a lot better when you do it often. We should do this more often. It’ll get better.”

“As if,” Donghyuck replies, curling on himself, voice dying. “Next time, you’re the one taking it up the ass.”

And Mark laughs and falls asleep thinking that, if this boy asked, he’d probably do it.

 

❃

 

The castle is drowning in pale blue light when Mark wakes up. The sky has cleared, and the god of sun has not risen yet, but he’s already stealing the darkness and the stars, the blue vault lightening under the touch of his greedy fingers.

He opens his eyes and he sees a tuft of blond hair peeking from the comforter. He smiles. Prince Donghyuck of the Southern Islands, one leg thrown over Mark’s hip, one hand on Mark’s shoulder, his touch searing hot against Mark’s sweaty skin, grumbles something and even his hair disappears under the blankets. Mark pulls the comforter down a little to allow, Donghyuck to breathe, but Donghyuck just scrunches his nose and snuggles closer, nosing at Mark’s neck, hiding from the light.

Mark pets his hair and then slowly, carefully extracts himself from Donghyuck’s hold. He washes up, as silent as he can, and he quickly throws some clothes on. When he comes back into the room, Donghyuck has hidden under the blankets again, a little bundle of heat all curled on himself, and one of the maids is peeking from the slightly ajar door, considering whether to enter or not. She bows when she sees Mark, taking a step back, and Mark leans down to lay a soft kiss on Donghyuck’s hair before he leaves the room, closing the door at his back.

“My lord, I apologize. You did not come down for supper yesterday, we were worried something was-”

“Ssh, not so loud.”

The maid stops talking immediately and bows, again. It’s then that Mark notices the basket at her side. There’s bread and fruit. He steals a bun and an apple.

“You can take that inside, but don’t disturb him. He’s resting.”

The maid nods. Then, with the softest voice, she says, “Congratulations, Your Majesty. May the Goddess bless you with a child soon.”

Mark thanks her, reminds her to not wake Donghyuck up and goes for the staircase.

 _May the Goddess mind her own business,_ he thinks, as he jumps the last three steps in a single stride.

The castle is still half-asleep, but the servants are already up and busy, opening the curtains, turning off the lanterns at the windows, cleaning the fireplaces from the ashes of the past night. Mark walks outside as pink washes over the sky, speckles of gold peeking among the clouds from the first sunrays shining just beyond the horizon. He leaves the main building of the castle, where only the royal family and the collaterals live, at his back, and heads towards the thick, large tower where the private apartments of the advisors and their families are located.

The building is white, all square, stern stones and wide windows framed in thick bronze, and still locked for the night. The young guard who opens the door for Mark takes some moment to realize who he is, but Mark shushes the boy and tells him to go back inside the guardhouse.

The corridors are still dark, silent and deserted. All the advisors have their own manor in the countryside and own one or more buildings in the capital, so not many of them have a need to spend the night at the tower, but Mark trusts the person he’s looking for to be here today, like any other day. He can’t remember the last time Dongyoung of the Kim clan of the West spent a night in his own home, at least since he started working for the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Dongyoung is actually sleeping on a giant tome when Mark lets himself in his private cabinet after the third time he knocks and gets no answer. He confusedly raises his head and blinks, twice, trying to focus on Mark with bloodshot, tired eyes.

“Goddess darling, Mark, it’s not even dawn.”

“It was, three minutes ago.”

Dongyoung tries to look outside, to the rapidly clearing sky, and Mark can almost hear the curses he’s screaming in his mind.

“Whatever,” he just says, sniffling. Then he stops, looks at Mark, inhales. “Well, congratulations. Hopefully the whole court will finally stop complaining about you and your husband for maybe…”

“Three days?”

Dongyoung snorts. “If we have ten hours of peace it will already be too much. Was it worth it, at least?” Mark doesn’t know what kind of face he’s making, but Dongyoung grimaces. “Please do not answer that. You look disgustingly happy.”

“I am moderately satisfied,” Mark replies, sitting down in front of the large desk.

One of Dongyoung’s eyebrows shoots upwards. “Moderately?”

“Well, I would be happier if I was still in bed with my husband. Definitely more satisfied as well.”

Dongyoung rolls his eyes as the fine fresco on the ceiling. “Dear goodness. And what brought you here, then, to interrupt my precious and scarce sleep?”

Mark rolls the small golden band he wears on his ring finger out of habit. Dongyoung, together with Yoonoh, who’s now camping somewhere in the mountains, leading the new recruits for the yearly inspection of the border counties, he’s one of his best friends. He’s that one friend who always covered for Mark and Yukhei whenever they got in trouble as children, the one who gave Mark properly etiquette training when he was too afraid to speak with the lords, the one who always has Mark’s back during Council meetings, especially when Sungmin is not there to help. He’s seen Mark grow up, from graceless, shy kid into a warrior, into a prince, into the Crown Prince, but he’s one of the few people in Mark’s life who doesn’t use him a single lick of deference. Plus, working for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dongyoung tends to know things. A lot of things. And there’s one thing Mark really needs to know right now.

“There is something that has been bothering me. About Donghyuck.”

Dongyoung lays back on the armchair, suddenly awake, suddenly sharp, the way Mark needs his future advisor to be.

Now, Mark has never been jealous in his life. He never had any reason to. But now there’s Donghyuck, and the way he curls up in himself whenever feelings are mentioned, eyes squeezed shut and hands on his ears, a child haunted by ghosts of the past. There’s Donghyuck and the way he had looked, sadness taking away his shine like a veil of dust over a golden lamp in a fairytale, as he said, _You have no idea, how incredibly easy it is, to hurt me._ Now there’s Donghyuck and Mark might be, maybe, a little, just a little… in love with him. He might also turn out to be the jealous type, after all.

“I want you to tell me everything you know about my husband’s former fiancée.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not a lot of angst this time, enjoy the calm while it lasts <3  
> /slithers back to her cave to plot/


	12. xii. it’s dark because you are trying too hard, lightly child, lightly, learn to do everything lightly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I'm sorry for being late. I posted another fic on Thursday and I wrote this chapter in two days, so I'll probably spend the next two days editing it properly because it's a little bit of a mess. It's also a very long chapter, so please be understanding ;;  
> \- Promo corner for [princess Dongsoon of the Southen Islands concept art](https://twitter.com/_EMPATHV/status/1158067485175930880) by @_EMPATHV, thank you so much ♥♥♥  
> \- Since a few people have asked [here is a map of the Vale and Islands](https://twitter.com/aprilclaws/status/1160507932989169664), a very simplified, tentative one, drawn by my unskilled hands u.u  
> \- I'm really glad you liked the first time scene, I'm still replying comments but it made me so happy because I've had a long time problem with unrealistically good first times, so I really wanted to convey the effort and the awkwardness while still keeping it enjoyable and your feedback has really reassured me I did well, thank you ;;  
> \- We're starting to get into the plotty part of the fic, so there's going to be a lot of new characters, new dynamics and new tensions from now on. This is a connection chapter with a lot of info so pay attention because they'll all be useful in the future. I'm super nervous but also super excited ;v;  
> \- Again, thank you SO MUCH for the incredible support, for the comments here, for the comments on the bookmarks, for the question on curiouscat, for the mentions on twitter, for the art and the theories you share among yourself and that sometimes I see, sometimes I don't see. I'd like to reply to every tweet about honeymouthed but I'm so afraid to intimidate people who are talking about the fic ;; But thank you ;;;; (also, as usual, I'm late with the comments ;;;; please forgive me, but rest assured I'll answer all of them!)  
> Enjoy ♥ 
> 
> -Title insp comes from the novel Island by Aldous Huxley  
> -Song insp for this chapter is Wonder by EDEN

The wind rattles against the windows and sneaks inside the pipes that run across the stonewalls like veins, howling like an army of ghosts trapped in the crawlspace, doomed to haunt the palace from the inside forever. It sounds like one of the bedtime stories Johnny would tell Mark when he was a child, tales of dead coming back from the grave rotten and blindly hungry, of ghosts leeching off the energy of the living, of indescribable monsters chained under the glaciers of the Clairs, at the border with the Empire, before the beginning of time. The king once caught Mark crying in his bed because of those stories. Mark must have been maybe four or five years old, back when he used to cling to his mother’s gowns and climb over the mahogany stool to play with the giant harp she kept in her solarium. His name back then was still Minhyung and he liked his cousin’s stories under the sun, he was terrified of them under the moon.

His father had scolded him, and then Johnny, and then the queen – for being too lenient, too sweet, too protective, _he will come out an Omega if you keep up with that_.

“What’s wrong with being an Omega?” she had talked back, tilting her chin up, standing straight in front of her husband. “Omegas in the North are worth as much as Alphas.”

“That might actually be good, so if he ends up being an Omega I can send you and him back to the mountains, Princess.”

It was the first time Mark had seen his parents fight. The first and the last, though he’s sure they had bickered a lot more in the privacy of their rooms when he was young, a lot less now that they have stopped sharing the same apartments and they can mind their own business in peace.

Johnny had left with his father the morning after, on a piebald horse tall enough to have come out of one of his legends. (The horses of the gods of the mountains, strong enough to move islands and break the earth under their hooves.) He had hugged Mark and told him to be strong, because one day he would come back to ask his help against the armies of flesh-eating wildlings in the North. (Johnny wouldn’t come back for years, and Mark would barely recognize the Northern Lord he had grown up into when he did.)  
Johnny left and Mark… Mark started training, that same day.

“Let’s make an Alpha out of you,” his father said, and an Alpha he got in the end, many years later, for better or for worse.

“I don’t understand,” the king says, with the most majestic frown Mark has ever seen him sport in months, “why are you being so stubborn, son. I do not really understand.”

 _How can you not understand?_ Mark thinks, fighting back a glare to keep his gaze clear and respectful. _You wanted an Alpha heir? You have an Alpha heir._

A willful, stubborn to the point of being adamant, extremely protective Alpha heir.

“Donghyuck is my Omega,” Mark repeats, slowly, irremovable. “It is my duty to punish him, and no one else’s.”

“It is your duty to make sure that your Omega respects our rules!” his father replies, slamming his fist on the table. Mark doesn’t flinch, but the hands he’s keeping behind his back tighten into fists. “That he doesn’t put himself in danger.”

“He was with me! I wouldn’t put him in danger!”

“And yet your little dove broke the rules, he…”

“I gave him permission,” lies Mark through his teeth. “How do you expect that boy to trust me? How do you expect him to trust any of us if he was a king and we keep him caged like a dove?”

A dove, a little summer bird. Mark scoffs inwardly at the way people call his husband. If Donghyuck was a bird, he would be a bird of prey. A hawk maybe, elegant and hungry and unforgiving. You can’t punish a hawk, you can’t get a hawk to submit. You don’t close him in a cage to show him who’s stronger. You close him in a cage to make him hungrier, and Mark has seen enough of Donghyuck to know it wouldn’t be pretty to make him hungrier for freedom than he already is. Hawks are too smart and opportunistic to stay with a trainer who won’t let them hunt, this is something every falconer knows. And Donghyuck is not even a bird, he is a person. He has a right to personal freedom, like everyone else in the kingdom.

“You asked for an alliance, father,” he says, “and I’m giving you one.”

“The only thing you should be doing is fucking that boy until he can’t get up!”

Mark hopes the doors are closed properly. He hopes the guards are not listening, but he knows very well every single word his father just said will be heard until the empire before lunch time. He knows Donghyuck will know of this, and he has no idea how he will react. He doesn’t know if Donghyuck will trust him enough to show him any reaction, but it is logical to say he will be either very angry or very hurt. Possibly both.

 _Damage control_ , he thinks, hastily.

“That, father, I have done. As you and the rest of the court are aware.”

“It’s not enough, an heir…”

“The heir will arrive, when I deem right to have one,” he says, and it comes out almost like a growl.

His father stand up, eyes burning with rage, and Mark stands up too. _Submit,_ the voice of reason inside him says. _Tell him what he wants to hear like you’ve always done._ Donghyuck must have woken up, at this point. The bed will be still warm. His thighs will be warm, too, honey silk under Mark’s tongue.

And yet, the king wanted an Alpha, and Alphas are willful, adamant, fucking stubborn, and possessive of their mates to a fault. Mark’s parents mated, but they never bonded enough to be caught in this feeling. Mark has nurtured it, within himself, within Donghyuck even, but he’s never felt it like this – like an open wound in his chest, bleeding, constantly, like something he has to fight against if he wants to keep his focus – until he sank in Donghyuck’s tight heat, claiming him from the inside, completing the bond. For better or for worse.

He realizes, faintly, how quickly he has fallen, and how in his mad, crazy fall he has dragged Donghyuck too, Donghyuck who didn’t want to fall, Donghyuck who just wanted to fly – but how could he resist this feeling? How could he have stayed impassive in front of a man who would hang the moon on his ceiling to see it shine on his beauty? It doesn’t matter if Donghyuck doesn’t trust him now, Mark will make him fall. Mark will drag him to the bottom of the pit, so that they can climb back together, and if his father wants to get in the middle of that, fuck him.

 

❃

 

The walk to the training area is short and angry. The sky is angry too, and dark, echoing Mark’s mood, and wrapped in thick, fat clouds, pregnant with rain. At least Yukhei went to town with his father, away from the barracks – at least won’t be there to witness to what Mark is doing, what his father is making him do.

Mark nods to greet Hongwon, who’s teaching some of the younger recruits how to swing a mace in the middle of the practice ring. They try to stand up when they see Mark, someone hints a salute, but they’re too scared of Hongwon’s glare to get distracted. Good, that’s why Mark put him in charge of them. He keeps walking around the buildings, greeting the soldiers curtly, angrily, in a way that makes them want to leave a wide berth between them and the Crown Prince.

Jungwoo is leaning in front of the stone fountain in the courtyard at the back of the low barrack, the same barrack where only two days ago Mark and Donghyuck hid from the guards. The whole area was opened again yesterday afternoon, while Mark accompanied Jaemin to the city gates in what was the slowest goodbye in history. The torrential rain that haunted the capital for days has stopped and it won’t pick up again for the rest of the season – it will still rain, but not like that, like it will never stop raining again – so the daily training has resumed from where it had left.

Jungwoo is wearing the heavy gear reserved for the knights, and the armor clinks when he bends to reach the rush of water flowing delicately from the bronze tap. He’s alone, mercifully. Mark doesn’t need an audience, not for this.

“Knight Jungwoo of the Kim-Lee clan,” Mark calls. Water trickles down Jungwoo’s chin as he straightens up, surprised, eyes widening when he senses the bitterness of Mark’s mood through his scent.

“Your Highness,” he says, voice firm and stable, so different from yesterday and the way he almost burst out crying. “I am ready to accept my punishment.”

His words are the only words he could say in his situation, but they make Mark even angrier. There’s no need to punish anyone. There would be no need to punish anyone if Mark had swallowed his pride in front of his father, but he didn’t – he couldn’t – and between Donghyuck and Jungwoo he’d rather punish the latter.

“Why didn’t you tell me what my husband was doing behind my back?”

Jungwoo looks down, ignoring the question, but Mark doesn’t let him.

“No, you will look at me in the eyes, Jungwoo, because you will be punished for this, so I want to at least know why am I being forced to do this to you. Why didn’t you trust me?”

“It’s not that I didn’t trust you, Your Majesty. It’s that the Prince Consort didn’t trust you.”

Something scratches in Mark’s chest when he hears the words. If Jungwoo was a little less than the good man, the good knight, the good friend he is, Mark would hate him for these words. They’re nothing but the truth, and yet he would’ve almost preferred it, if Jungwoo had lied to him instead of serving it raw and cold to him.

“You don’t serve the Prince Consort, Jungwoo. You serve me. And I told you to keep an eye on him and tell me everything.”

Mark only realizes the danger of what he just said when an awkward silence falls over the courtyard. He sees Jungwoo’s eyes flickering behind him, but thankfully they’re still alone. The truth is, Jungwoo doesn’t serve Donghyuck, but he certainly doesn’t serve Mark either. Jungwoo serves the king before everyone else.

 _But has my father ever met this boy? Has he trained with him? How long has it been since the king last came down the barracks?_ All the soldiers training at the palace know Mark, and the ones at the border, and the ones stationed around the country, because all the recruits are fostered in the palace for months before getting dispatched wherever they might be useful. All the recruits have met the Crown Prince and trained with him and asked him for advice. All of them. The king is a mirage for most of those boys, a silver-clad figure staring from the balcony of a shiny palace. But the prince – the Crown Prince, their future king – oh, they know him, they respect him, they would die for him. And Mark doesn’t understand how Jungwoo would’ve ever thought about disobeying a direct order from him.

“I know, Your Majesty. But… He looked desperate. I was afraid he would’ve done something unspeakable, had I betrayed his secret. And I thought… I thought it was better to keep an eye on him and make sure he didn’t end up in trouble, than telling someone and get him in trouble.”

“Do you think I would’ve gotten him in trouble?” Mark asks, and Jungwoo blushes.

“I don’t know, sir. I’ve followed and protected your husband for the past few months and I’ve never seen you take his hand, or talk to him, or visit him, not even once. It is not my place to make assumptions,” he says quickly, for he must sense the way Mark’s mood worsens, his gaze darkening even more with every word, “but I assumed he would need a friend more than a guard. You might be aware of this, but the Prince Consort is strong enough not to need any guards.”

Jungwoo looks down, waiting for Mark’s words. When they don’t come, he continues. “I know I have disappointed you. For that, I will welcome the punishment you have chosen for me.”

Mark doesn’t know what to answer. He wants Jungwoo to be punished as much as he’s aware how unfair it is to punish Jungwoo. He wants him away from Donghyuck, but there’s no one else he would trust with Donghyuck, at this point. More than anything else, his opinion doesn’t really count anymore.

“My father wanted you out of the palace,” he says. “He wanted to send you to the mountains for the rest of your service.”

He watches Jungwoo pale, a small satisfaction, poisoned by regret.

“I tried to talk him out of it because you’re one of the most promising knights in the Vale.” He didn’t tell his father how Jungwoo is one of his most trusted knights, nor he tried to take responsibility for his actions because that would’ve just made the king angrier, and probably jealous, maybe even threatened. “You’re also a son of the Kim-Lee clan, and we can’t simply banish you like that and call it a dispatchment. You’re going to be on probation from now on, guarding the city.”

“But that’s-”

“Beneath you? It’s better to be a knight at the border or a city guard in the capital, Jungwoo?” Mark shakes his head. “It’s only temporary, just until my father forgets about it.”

“And what about the Prince Consort, Your Highness? Who’s going to guard him?”

Mark looks at Jungwoo, and he realizes, with a pang of bitterness, that he really cares about Donghyuck. Of course he does. He cared enough to betray Mark’s trust, to ignore his orders – Mark, his prince, his future king, his friend.

 _What is it that you do to people,_ Mark wonders, eyes wandering to the tallest tower standing against the dark sky like a white beacon in the middle of the storm, to the prince who sleeps there every night, wrapped in his beauty, like the hero of a fairytale. It’s so late, Donghyuck must have woken up. He must have been looking for Mark, the bond between them tingling, shaken by sparks of uneasiness hanging between them like raindrops trickling down a spiderweb.

Mark turns back to Jungwoo.

“You should have come to me,” he just says, before he leaves. “It would’ve been better for all of us.”

 

❃

 

Donghyuck is sitting on the edge of the bed when Mark finally comes back to their room. He’s wearing gold over white, a silk sash he brought from his sunny islands carefully draped over one of the heavy military uniforms he stole from Mark’s closet. He doesn’t look Omega enough, but he looks prettier than Mark can withstand.

He doesn’t say anything, but Mark can feel he’s not pleased.

“I apologize,” Mark starts, closing the door at his back. “My father wished to talk with me and I couldn’t say no to the king.”

Donghyuck looks up, an air of petulance marring his face. “You did, yesterday.”

“Then you already know why it wouldn’t be wise to do it today.”

Donghyuck hums. He smells different this morning, colorful, vibrant, like those flowers that bloom at night – you can’t see them in the darkness but you can follow their heady scent. It will still be there when sun comes, and together they will paint the garden golden.

Physically, nothing changed, but the night they spent together is making Donghyuck look grounded. A castaway lost at sea, so many days, so many nights, hanging onto the wreckage of his boat, who finally found land. Inhospital, unfamiliar, but land. Mark has trouble to breathe when he realizes that he’s the land now, for Donghyuck.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and it must have sounded more sincere than before because Donghyuck looks appeased this time. Mark wonders how long that would last, if Donghyuck discovered how much Dongyoung told him this morning. He would be furious.

“The maids told me I won’t be punished, although the king is not pleased with me.”

That’s an understatement, but Mark still walks over and sits next to him. “He might not be, but I, on the other hand, am very pleased with you.”

The corner of Donghyuck’s mouth lifts a little in a daring smile.

“You’re not the king, though.”

“Am I not? Didn’t you call me a king yesterday? My king, you said.”

Donghyuck crosses his arms and looks at the closed door. When he talks, his voice is so low Mark can barely make out the words under the howling of the wind.

“The only one I’m willing to respect,” he murmurs, and if Mark wasn’t feeling so damn pleased, the Alpha in him preening at the praise, he’d probably find it in himself to be a little worried. If someone, anyone, would hear him say anything like that, it would be high treason.

“Donghyuck,” he starts, and he doesn’t really know how to say what he wants to say without exposing himself. _I’m sorry my father is so insensitive? When I’ll be king things will be different? I am on your side?_ He can’t, he can’t even say he’s on Donghyuck’s side. He doesn’t know how much he’s willing to go to help Donghyuck, but he needs to be careful. He needs to be a prince of the Vale, before anything else, because if he loses that power, he won’t be able to help Donghyuck – he won’t be able to keep him at all.

“What will happen to Jungwoo?” Donghyuck asks, any trace of amusement gone from his features.

Mark sighs. “He’s been demoted. City guard. He’ll serve at the gates and supervise the travelers entering the city.”

“But… he’s a knight.”

“And my father is the king. He thinks his new job will teach him humility and obedience.”

Donghyuck grimaces, looking at Mark like he’s crazy. “Jungwoo? Humility and obedience? Oh, I’d like to see that happen…”

Mark can’t help but to echo the feeling. Jungwoo is… surprisingly very strong-willed, for someone who acts like a pushover all the time. He’s a little amazed that Donghyuck managed to pick that up in such a short time. It took Mark years to crack Jungwoo’s mask and see what he was hiding behind all the politeness and sweet cheerfulness.

“Who will guard me, then?”

It is Mark’s turn to grimace. Oh, Donghyuck might even be happy, until he realizes how much of his freedom he has lost. Mark is definitely unhappy, although for different reasons.

“Donghyuck, listen,” he begins, but a soft knock at the door interrupts him, startling he and Donghyuck at the same time.

“Your Highness?” calls the uncertain voice of one of the maids. “You are waited at the banquet. The king sent me to summon you downstairs.”

“Please inform the king that we will not be joining him today, and bring my apologies,” Mark answers, and he sees Donghyuck almost wince at how loud his voice sounds after the last few minutes they spent whispering.

There’s a beat of silence. Then another voice. Gongmyung, Mark recognizes him quite well.

“The king insists, Your Highness.”

Mark swallows a very unprincely curse and cards his fingers through his hair, feeling a little like a child caught red-handed. It’s unfair to treat him like an unruly child. It’s humiliating. Mark is the Crown Prince, not a toddler.

“Please spare us a moment,” he lies through gritted teeth.

“You are already running late, Your Majesty.”

“Give us the time to make each other presentable, Lord Kim.” Donghyuck replies through the closed door. “We cannot possibly join the rest of the court in our undergarments.”

His words are followed by a tense, awkward silence, but finally the advisor walks away, announcing he will wait for them in the adjacent room.

“Half of the noblemen of the kingdom will be there and they will all be able to smell me on you,” Mark says, just loud enough for Donghyuck to hear. “Are you sure you're comfortable going?”

Donghyuck shrugs. “And what if they do? You are my husband. We did nothing wrong.”

No, they didn’t, but Donghyuck cannot understand the implications of what the king is doing to them.

“It’s extremely scandalous, in the Vale, for a married couple to show up at court the day after the first mating or a heat, when their joined scent is at its strongest. It’s a time that should be spent together, away from the crowd. It’s private.” He looks at Donghyuck’s face, to make sure he really understands. “My father wants to show you off like a breeding mare, Donghyuck. He wants to show everyone how much power he has over you.”

Donghyuck laughs, so light, so light.

“You’re so naive, darling. How did you survive until now?” His fingers trace Mark’s jaw, delicate like a butterfly. “Your father wants to show everyone how much power he has over you, not me. You must have made him very angry… just to protect me.”

Mark doesn’t deny, but Donghyuck wouldn’t have believed him anyway.

“Then let’s show him how much power we have on our own.”

Donghyuck gets up, shakes his head, and Mark can see the way he changes, his expression shifting almost as he was putting on a mask.

He’s so good at this, Mark thinks, when Donghyuck extends his arm for Mark to take. He doesn’t doubt they will make quite a scene when they appear on top of the staircase of the dining hall, Donghyuck in white and gold, Mark in dark green and silver, pretty and young and in love, two mates who finally consummated their union. He doesn’t doubt the entire court will cheer at their passage. And yet Mark only wants to smudge the perfection of Donghyuck’s expression, drag a thumb over his mouth and reveal the cheeky grin underneath, the one Donghyuck always let out whenever he was one step away, one lunge away, one breath away from winning a duel. Mark wants to kiss that grin until it turns into a moan.

The maid knocks again and Mark doesn’t take Donghyuck’s arm. With his fingers, he follows the vein that starting from the inner side of his elbow crosses his arm like a river. He turns Donghyuck’s arm in his hand, laying a delicate kiss at his wrist like he did for their wedding day – and Donghyuck still tastes like gold and ruin, only this time he also tastes like Mark’s mate, and his chest still stops, a breath caught in his throat just like that day, only this time it’s not rage making him stutter, not rage but tenderness.

“Everyone will be looking at you,” Mark whispers, and he intertwines their fingers together. “Think you can put on a show for them?”

And Donghyuck smiles, his real smile, and, for once, it’s for Mark and Mark only – and it’s like bringing back time, bringing back summer, the dry, dream-like heat of a summer afternoon, the bees buzzing, the flowers rustling among countless ears of grain, a boy pinning another boy down in front of the river, countless goldenroad flowers reflected in their eyes.

“Don’t worry about that, I’ll be the prettiest thing they’ll ever see in their life.”

Mark doesn’t doubt it.

 

❃

 

“Stop acting like a chastized child,” Donghyuck says, as the doors are opened in front of them. “You’re my husband, please look the part.”

His hand is clammy, or maybe Mark’s hand is the one that’s clammy. They both hold tighter, feeling each other’s heartbeat through their bond as they get ready to step into the spotlight.

Mark has a confused, out of focus impression of bright colors and chattering noises, of goblets clashing against wood and silver scratching porcelain and chairs being moved and laughter, so much laughter, and it’s never felt more fake. It doesn’t last long, because even before the valet can announce the Crown Prince and his consort, the whole hall has fallen in a religious silence.

Mark hesitates. He’s been living in this palace his whole life and never, maybe not even when he presented, nor after his trial, during the ceremony that formalized his right to inherit the throne by appointing him Crown Prince, people have looked at him like this. Almost hungrily.

“It’s because you’ve always been quite the boring Crown Prince,” Donghyuck whispers in his ear, tugging a little and forcing him to move, and Mark can see half of the room leaning over in a futile attempt to hear what the Prince Consort has told him. “All proper and pristine.”

Donghyuck smiles. He’s so good at this it’s almost unfair. The entire court is hanging from his lips. _Let them wonder_ , his eyes seem to say. Mark shakily smiles back.

They descend the stairs slowly, holding hands instead of linking arms like the etiquette would require. Donghyuck holds his head high, looking too precious for everyone in the room to look at, and Mark can’t help but echo the shiver of wonder that spreads across the crowd at his passage.

The Vale is a powerful kingdom of stone castles and green meadows, of deep forests and large rivers, of farmers and shepherds, of knights wearing heavy armors and carrying heavy swords. The Vale of the Giants, they call it, for its wide valleys, dug by the giants before the beginning of time, says the legend, or maybe for their tall trees, tall horses, tall towers. It’s a powerful kingdom, of simple people who work hard and fight harder, but it’s not a rich kingdom.

The Southern Islands though, where the Goddess was said to have landed when she fell from heaven in the middle of the sea, the Southern Islands are rich, so rich that most people in the Vale are still convinced they’re made of gold. The islanders are sailors, and traders, and lovers, kissed by the Goddess. They wear gold on their skin and on their eyes and even their touch shines.

This is what the alliance is about. The Vale’s military power and the Islands’ wealth. This is what Mark married, a dream of a far-away land of gold, of silk and spices and people so pretty they carry the sun in their smile. Donghyuck of the Southern Island doesn’t need a crown to make people bow when he walks by. He promised Mark he would be the prettiest thing they’ll ever see in their life. Goddess, he kept his promise.

They bow in front of the king and Mark apologizes for their late arrival and the hall explodes in nervous chattering, in whispered comments about what the royal princes must have been doing, to be so late.

The king frowns and Mark holds his gaze. Isn’t this what he wanted when he forced them to attend? To show them off? They must make quite the sight, the prince of the Vale and the prince of the Islands, young and pretty and so in love, still smelling like each other. The court loves them. By tomorrow the entire kingdom will love them.

 

❃

 

Donghyuck hides his smile behind his left hand and squeezes Mark’s hand with the other as he drags him away from the hall after supper, dribbling clusters of people way too eager to congratulate them on completing the mating.

“How did you get so good at this?” Mark asks, a whisper meant for Donghyuck only, as they make way towards one of the balconies.

“A personal flair for dramatics and the utter belief that I’m better than most people at this table,” Donghyuck whispers into his ear.

“You’re terrible. My father was looking so annoyed.”

Donghyuck’s eyes shine with mirth. He pulls Mark into one of the small alcoves and he leans over to kiss Mark’s cheek, making him panic.

“What are you doing?” Mark scream-whispers. Donghyuck’s hands cradle his face, a gesture too intimate to be shared in public.

“Being a shameless prince of the islands? You told me to put on a show.”

“Not a rated show, Donghyuck!”

Donghyuck’s smile deepens. He sinks in the fluffy cushions, holding Mark’s hand over his lap.

“Do you think your father enjoyed the show, at least?”

“He’s going to punish the both of us so harshly tomorrow,” Mark murmurs, and Donghyuck leans over, closer than closer until he’s almost sitting in Mark’s lap.

“Will you protect me, Alpha?”

Mark scoffs, wraps an arm around Donghyuck’s back and pretends for a moment that the way Donghyuck cuddles back until he’s almost sitting on Mark’s thigh is because he trusts him and not because he’s trying to make a point.

“I’m just worried about you,” he sighs, and his head lolls back against Donghyuck’s shoulder.

“Let him try. I might be an Omega, but I’m still a prince. He wouldn’t risk the wrath of my family to satisfy his pride, not with all the tensions at the border. You should worry about yourself instead. Your father looks like you slapped him in the face.”

Smart, so smart Donghyuck. Mark would really like to know where he learnt to play the court games, the same games Mark always refused to play, choosing to spend his time in the barracks, with the soldier instead of with the lords. You can’t lose if you’re not competing, is what he thought of the usual waltz of alliances, fake smiles and secret meanings of the court. You can’t win either, says a voice that sounds suspiciously like Donghyuck’s.

“I’ve never made him purposefully angry,” Mark confesses.

“And how does it feel?”

Heady, and definitive, the dreadful feeling that it’s already too late to back out now. The stakes are too high, the ice they’re threading on too young, fragile and slippery. A faux pas could cost him more than he can afford to lose.

“It feels dangerous.”

“The court is always dangerous, here like in the islands. You’ve been a pawn in your father’s hands all this time, haven’t you? No teenage rebellion, no scandals, no bastards sons in the belly of a whore of the capital… You spoiled him.”

“What about you?” Mark asks. “I’ve always heard only good things about Prince Donghyuck of the Islands. The golden child of the Coraline, handsome and humble. Talented archer and swordsman, betrothed to one of the richest heirs in the country… The perfect prince.”

Donghyuck is good, so good at acting, but Mark can hear his heartbeat like it was his own, and he doesn’t miss the spike. He doesn’t miss the sudden tension in his husband’s body, the way he has to force his limbs to stay lax and soft in Mark’s embrace, fighting against his fight-or-flight response. Donghyuck takes a deep breath and catches the attention of one of the waiters swirling around the hall with flutes on their trays. He picks pink wine, sweet and incredibly strong, and it’s only after he’s drank half of it in a single gulp he finally relaxes enough to talk.

“People only know what the royal family lets them know,” he says, letting the pink liquid swirl in the flute. “Reality might have been a little different.”

“Do tell me.”

Donghyuck smiles at him again, soft-limbed and pink-faced, the tension he showed earlier forgotten – or carefully hidden.

“I was quite the rascal during my childhood. Constantly sneaking out and taking the boat on my own. I almost died two or three times in a storm.” His eyes are glazed, and Mark can almost see the blackness of the angry waves foaming at the mouth in the madness of a storm. “Once I got lost and found myself on the other side of the sea, at Cape Conk. Lord Jung’s youngest son found me on the beach, it was almost a diplomatic incident.”

Mark feels his heart fall, something ugly clawing inside his throat. He swallows, forcing it even deeper inside his chest. “I’ve never heard this story,” he murmurs.

“Oh, because no one knew about it. Lord Jung’s son, Yoonoh, that was his name back then – well, this happened way before he became a famous captain of your father’s army and gave up his birth name – realized I could’ve caused a war and put me back on the first ship to the islands that same night. My father was furious, he didn’t allow me to leave the palace for weeks.”

“So you met the son of Lord Jung,” Mark murmurs, and Donghyuck nods, excitedly.

“Oh, yes, I had such an ugly crush on him back then.” Mark’s hand claws at the velvet lining of the sofa, but Donghyuck is too focused on his wine to notice – or maybe he’s just pretending. “I hoped to see him at the wedding, you know? I never got around to thank him for what he did, my father didn’t even let me write him a letter…”

A sudden rise in the chattering of the room distracts him. Mark gets up to see what’s happening and catch more wine for Donghyuck. It’s when he meets his father’s gaze that he realizes that, after all, Donghyuck was right. Today wasn’t only about showing off Mark’s new husband to the kingdom, this show of power was also about Mark and his lack of obedience, and his punishment arrives, like clockwork, announced by the same valet who called Mark’s name only a few hours ago.

“Captain Jaehyun of the Winged Knights of the Vale!” the servant at the door cries, loud enough that the whole room can hear, and Mark looks up to stare at the kind eyes of the youngest son of Lord Jung, the best swordsman in the country, his perfect, untouchable childhood friend, summoned from the border with utmost urgency to become Donghyuck’s personal guard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soon on chapter 13: mark being extremely jealous of jaehyun, of donghyuck's former betrothed, of jeno, of everyone who smiles at donghyuck


	13. xiii. like the dawn that will blossom, i am jealous of the light that touches your cheeks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few quick notes.  
> -Free promo for [ruin, glorious and golden and still ruin](https://twitter.com/temporaryfxxx/status/1161323539561160705) by @temporaryfxxx, it's super pretty, please give it a lot of love ;;  
> -The reaction for chapter 12 was overwhelming ;; I really didn't expect that chapter to be appreciated so much, but I'm glad you're also liking these more 'political' chapters. Until now I've mostly focused on building markhyuck's dynamics, but we need to explore a little more of the court before we can focus on the relationship among the kingdoms and on the heavier side of the plot. I've said it a few times, the chapters are too short for me to give out a big chunk of info all at once, but I'm trying to give them little by little so that you can all have a good idea of all the characters and their relations when shit goes down.  
> -You were all waiting for Mark being jealous, and I can promise he will be jealous, both in this chapter and in the next, but also remember that his jealousy will be slowburn too and it will increase over time (I know many of you were expecting an explosion but I'll let you all read the chapter and judge for yourself).  
> -I'm traveling again this week so chapter 14 might come a little late, please be understanding ;;  
> -Yay for a girl who finally managed to reply all the comments in time, that girl is me and I'm proud of myself for once lol. Thank you, again, for being so enthusiastic and excited about this fic, your enthusiasm is mine too, it gives me an incredible energy and it helps me with updating and just, thank you ;;
> 
> \- [chapter title inspiration](https://avolitorial.tumblr.com/post/185569972447/a-belated-birthday-gift-for-verilies)

The bell of the Temple of Dawyd rings for the last time of the day, for the first time of the day. Twelve tolls at midnight, the signal for the beginning of the curfew in the city. Everyone caught roaming the streets by the night patrol will have to spend the rest of the week on forced labour, repairing the stonewalls or cleaning the drainage system, settling their debt with the law of the king. The streets of the capital will stay quiet and still until the bell rings again, six hours of reprieve, six hours of rest.

But in the castle no one can hear the midnight bell, nor they will hear the morning bell. In the halls of the palace, the only sounds heard this late at night are the loud cheers coming from the big ballroom as the last song comes to an end. The dancers separate and swarm towards the tables, taking a moment to collect their breaths while the palace musicians tune their instruments. A new singer steps in front of the orchestra in a swirl of deep red, raising her gowns with two fingers as she, too, tunes her instrument. She clears her voice, letting out a clear sound that is soon joined by the sweet notes of her companions. Mark recognizes the song from the first notes – not that he was expecting them to play a different one, now that Jaehyun is in the room.

 _A blizzard on the Clairs_ is the ballad of the last great Southward advance of the Empire, whose armies crossed the pass of Condor Peak to invade the Vale four years ago. Their unstoppable descent was, however, stopped. By a young captain of the army, barely seventeen years old, the son of a Lord of the sea, _swift of blade, swifter of mind_ , the singer sings. He led his company through the clefts and peaks of the Clairs, the mountain range that separates the Vale from the Empire, in the middle of the snow storm. They fell on the Imperial army from behind, their ambush covered by the thick curtain of snow, and decimated them. The young captain managed to defeat the second Imperial prince in a duel and brought him home to the capital as a prisoner, saving the kingdom. From that day, his company was named the Winged Knights, and Yoonoh, last son of Lord Jung of Cape Conk, who had forsaken his family and his name to enter the army of the Vale, was renamed Jaehyun, and he became a national hero.

“He’s even more handsome than the tales make him to be.”

Mark lets out a non-committal hum, takes another sip of whiskey and exchanges a look with his drinking companion. Despite the hungry way he looks at Jaehyun, Jeno seems a little bummed, almost dejected. The dark blue vest makes him look even paler, but the alcohol has painted his cheeks a delicate pink.

“We also have songs about him, you know?” he says, slurring a little. “Captain Jaehyun of the Vale of the Giants. Though no one is as pretty as _A blizzard on the Clairs._ Donghyuck would listen to it for hours. Goddess, I think he could sing all of it by memory only. He was always gloating over that time he ran away and met him on the beach of Cape Conk.”

“Did it really happen?” Mark asks, between gritted teeth, trying not to to glare at the way Jaehyun swirls Donghyuck around the dancefloor and failing miserably. The whiskey swirls in his glass, catching the lights of the chandelier. It burned Mark’s throat when he first started drinking, but now it tastes almost sweet, so unlike Jeno’s next words.

“Oh, it did. I was there when the messenger arrived saying Donghyuck was on one of the ships coming in from the Vale. I was even punished alongside him, because I covered for his royal ass when he took the boat out in the first place.”

On the other side of the room, Donghyuck laughs and almost trips, and Jaehyun curls a protective arm around him, shaking his head and leading him away from the dance. Mark watches him call a waiter, probably asking for water. He can almost read the words on his lips, _The Prince Consort must have had too much to drink_ , a dimpled smile. He hates his father for assigning Jaehyun to Donghyuck, he hates Jaehyun for not having any chance to refuse and he hates Donghyuck for being understandably smitten with the hero of the Vale.

Jeno notices his gaze and snickers, a little drunk, a little sad. Uncharacteristically mean. “Donghyuck used to have a big fat crush on him, you know? He said he would’ve courted him if he hadn’t already been betrothed.”

Mark lays his glass down and gets up, startling both himself and Jeno, who looks at him with big, scared eyes.

“It was a joke, Your Highness… He didn’t really have a crush…”

Mark should really stay – he has things to ask Jeno, things not even Dongyoung could tell him, things Jeno would never tell him sober, and it’s not often that he can get his husband’s best friend alone and wasted – but he watches Donghyuck stumble a little, resting his forehead against Jaehyun’s shoulder and he realizes it’s time for an intervention.

“Come, Jeno,” he says, taking the whiskey glass from Jeno’s hands and laying it on the edge of the window, pulling the boy up to his feet right after. “You need to bring my husband back to our rooms.”

“He didn’t really have a crush,” Jeno repeats. “Jaehyun is an Alpha, Hyuck knew they wouldn’t have been compatible… And besides, back then Donghyuck was still in love with…”

Jeno cannot finish his sentence because Mark’s hand closes around his wrist, tight, almost bruising.

“Jeno, if you cherish your tongue stop talking for the Goddess’ sake, there are people here. Go there and take Donghyuck upstairs, would you?”

Jeno seems on the verge of protesting – it would be in his right to do, Mark is not his king and he can’t order him around like that, but then something clears in his head and he nods, a little shaky, a little horrified at what he almost said. “Yes, yes, Your Highness,” he murmurs.

Mark tries to stop himself from drinking some more as Jeno walks towards Jaehyun and Donghyuck, bending over to whisper something at Donghyuck’s ear. Donghyuck turns to send Mark a piercing look, but he eventually bows to Jaehyun and follows Jeno out of the room. Mark falls back against the cushions. His husband didn’t look too happy to be forced to leave.

A servant takes his empty glass and offers him a full one. Mark would definitely drink some more but his head is already spinning.

When Mark looks up, he sees Jaehyun making his way towards him, green and silver captain uniform and curly hair and a friendly smile. He definitely needs more alcohol.

“You didn’t even come to say hi, Your Highness. I’m hurt.”

“I decided I’d let the rest of the kingdom have a go at you first,” Mark says, shrugging. He gestures for the servant to come again. “Everyone was waiting for your return.”

“And yet my best friend doesn’t seem so happy to see me.”

“You mean Dongyoung? Or me?”

Jaehyun grimaces at that. “Is he still that angry? It’s been months.”

“Don’t look at me. I have no idea of what happened between the two of you.”

“He didn’t tell you?” Jaehyun hums, a little surprised. He scans the crowd, probably looking for Dongyoung, but to no avail. Dongyoung left just before his arrival – and how he even knew about it in advance is out of Mark’s grasp, but working for the Minister might have its perks, after all.

“I never asked. I didn’t want to take sides.”

Jaehyun sighs. For a moment, he looks too tiny for his long limbs, his large shoulders and his big hands, so nimble with a sword. Mark has lost count of how many times Jaehyun defeated him, with an easy grace that not even Donghyuck could ever emulate. Too bad all it takes is a single glare from Dongyoung to disarm him.

“Anyway, congratulations for your marriage,” Jaehyun says, with a smile. “Your husband was very handsome tonight. He really grew up... Remember when he was this small grasshopper screaming at you to accept his challenge?”

Oh, Mark remembers. He remembers better than anyone else. He nods, disgruntled.

Jaehyun is still smiling, no trace of darkness on his face. It’s impossible to hate Jaehyun – he’s too nice, too handsome, too righteous and kind and perfect, an old tales’ hero in flesh and blood, real, living and breathing and still untouchable, _golden_ , and Mark hates him anyway because he looked so nice next to Donghyuck it hurt to watch, and he wasn’t even doing it on purpose.

“Did my father tell you why he called you back?” Mark asks, leaving Jaehyun’s question painfully unanswered.

Jaehyun blinks, confused. He shakes his head.

“No, I only knew it was an urgent business. You know, right?”

Mark nods.

_You’re here to test my loyalties. And yours, as well._

Pawns. They’re all pawns in a king’s game. And yet on the chessboard the most powerful piece is not the king. It’s the queen.

Donghyuck didn’t call Mark a pawn, he called him a king. His king. What does that make Donghyuck then? Are they really the king’s pawns in Donghyuck’s chessboard, or are the white pieces ready to battle against the black? The whiskey doesn’t burn anymore. It tastes sweeter and sweeter. Almost like honey. Honey and fire.

Mark turns towards Jaehyun, watches the light of the chandelier blow golden light on Jaehyun’s hair.

“You’re here because my father is terrified of my husband.”

 

❃

 

The room is lined in darkness and soft whispers and the world has the slippery, misty quality of dreams and drunken nights. The edge of Mark’s vision shines in rainbow colors, the way lights fractures against bubbles and that thin sheen of oil that covers the water after Donghyuck’s baths.

Jeno gets up as soon as Mark enters the room, fast but not fast enough that Mark fails to see how close he was sitting to Donghyuck, their intertwined hands, his hair even darker against Donghyuck’s burnt blonde, his mouth open in secrets meant only for Donghyuck to hear. Mark can’t help the sound that escapes his throat – centuries ago it would’ve been a growl, and maybe it was a growl still, biology running wild, instinct running wild, slipping through the chains of rationality with the help of alcohol.

Mark tries to glare, tries to find his sword, the entire room wobbling and collapsing on itself around him.

“Look at this fool,” he hears Donghyuck say, his tongue clicking, merciless, mean.

“You were in no better condition when we got here,” Jeno replies, and why is he still here? Why hasn’t he left? This isn’t his room, he shouldn’t be, he shouldn’t…

“Jeno is here because you told him to take me back Mark,” Donghyuck says, speaking slowly. He kneels next to Mark – when did he fall – and cups his face with cool hands.

“Leave, Jeno,” Donghyuck whispers. “I have to take care of this moron.”

Yes, leave, Jeno. Finally. The sound of the door being shut close echoes in Mark’s mind, like the boulder moved by the giant at the opening of the cave where he kept his slave princesses. Tales, no more than tales, tales of golden hawks and silverbirds, of kings and lionhearts, of wolves, of curses and tall towers. Mark closes his eyes and lets Donghyuck help him up to a standing position, lets Donghyuck carry him to bed.

He stumbles face down on the bed and he hears Donghyuck groan, “Come on, Mark. Turn around.” He giggles, trying to resist when Donghyuck pulls at his sides to roll him over, and eventually gives up.

Donghyuck’s fingers are swift and nimble and light on his chest, unfastening the frogs at his wrists and chest. He tugs, finally managing to rid Mark of the jacket, and then he hesitates, his hands resting at the button that lies against Mark’s throat. Mark’s eyes blink open and he traps them there before Donghyuck can pull back, dragging them down his stomach and towards his cock.

The surprise melts into a cocky smirk on Donghyuck’s face. “Aren’t you too drunk to get it up?” he murmurs, and Mark wants to protest, but Donghyuck finally pulls on the fabric, tearing three or four buttons away with wicked glee.

“Hey,” Mark protests, but Donghyuck’s fingers are cool and strong on his bare stomach, grounding him when everything feels hollow, devoid of gravity. Without his touch, Mark could easily starts floating and get carried away by the night wind.

“Why did you drink so much, Mark?” Donghyuck asks, coyly.

“Why did you dance with Jaehyun?” Mark asks back. The words sound so clear in his mind, but Donghyuck looks at him like he can’t understand. “You should’ve danced with me.”

“You told me you can’t dance,” Donghyuck answers. “At the wedding banquet, when my father asked you to dance with me. You said you’re not good at dancing.”

Ah, the wedding banquet. Donghyuck, with gold on his face, highlighting his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose and the bow of his lips, the golden wings spread around his eyes, following the black line of the kohl. Donghyuck and his sheer tunic, and the golden chain around his neck, to chain him to Mark’s heart.

“I lied. You looked… You looked like you’d rather have your feet cut off than to have a dance with me.”

Donghyuck purses his lips. He tugs at Mark’s pants until Mark raises his hips, and then pulls them off.

“Next time we should dance, Donghyuck. Will you dance with me?”

Donghyuck slaps his wandering hands away. He sighs, drawing back until he’s straddling Mark’s thighs. He’s lost the golden sash and the jacket and the shirt is falling on his shoulder, opened. It takes a moment for Mark to realize he did that.

“Next time… if you get down on your knees to ask me for a dance, I will say yes,” Donghyuck murmurs, and Mark feels the corners of his mouth lifting in a satisfied smile. He pulls himself up until his chest is flush against Donghyuck’s, their noses touching.

“In front of everyone? I would do that for you.”

Donghyuck smiles, and it’s almost a kiss.

“Scandalous. Your father won’t be happy.”

Mark kisses him softly.

“But would you be happy?”

Something flashes in Donghyuck’s eyes, something like fear. He closes Mark’s mouth with two fingers and shakes his head.

“You should never drink again, Minhyung. You’re awful at holding your alcohol. You talk too much, and of dangerous things.” He presses against Mark’s lips, parting them with his index fingers. “So naive, my silly prince. This palace will eat you alive and spit your bones only.”

Mark shakes his head and laps wetly at Donghyuck’s fingers, letting out a satisfied groan when Donghyuck’s scent sharpens.

“You’re impossible, I swear. Why did you drink so much?”

And maybe he wasn’t even expecting an answer, but Mark goes and gives him one anyway.

“Because you were smiling at another man and I was… I was…” He doesn’t know how he was, or what he was, or how much he was, but the feeling is still there, like an anchor inside his chest, keeping his heart from floating away in the bubble of whiskey-induced drowsiness. “Do you still like Jaehyun? Tell me… I’ll challenge him, if you do, because you’re my husband and it’s not fair, you should only like me…”

He’s babbling, and thrashing under Donghyuck’s hands, and then falling backwards until Donghyuck is pinning him against the mattress, their legs intertwined, Donghyuck’s hands planted on the pillow at either side of Mark’s face, their bodies so close Donghyuck’s fringe brushes against his forehead.

Mark looks up with big eyes, blown wide to catch Donghyuck’s expression in the darkness of the room, and all around them the world shakes, shines, and the night has a golden edge, almost like Mark is living it through the fizzing spume of sweet ale, through the swirl of honey whiskey.

“Why are you so stupid, Minhyung? You’re getting jealous on your own, you’re getting hurt on your own… You’re falling so deep, but I’m not… You know I’m not, I told you, I can’t. Aren’t you scared I’ll break your heart?”

Mark’s eyes flutter and his lashes catch the faint silver glow of the stars. It stays there, stuck, like a dragonfly on a spiderweb, and Donghyuck’s face falls out of focus, gravity becomes too heavy to withstand.

“This is the only way…” Mark murmurs, the words caking in his mouth, chalky, sugary. “You think I’m stupid? We shall see, sunshine. No one…” His eyes flutter close, and Mark struggles against the weight of the world, willing them open again, even if he can barely see Donghyuck. “No one can stay untouched, not by… this, this feeling I feel for you. I like you so much that it has to mean something. It has to change something, because what chances would I have otherwise?”

“It doesn’t work like this, it doesn’t work like this at all.”

The night kisses Mark eyes and his lips. He’s too tired to kiss back.

 _No one knows how love works,_ he thinks, and after that he doesn’t think anything at all.

 

❃

 

Mark wakes up with bile gnawing at his gums, an entire army marching to war inside his head and a very confused, very faulty recollection of what happened yesterday night after his conversation with Jaehyun. Something is pounding at the edge of his consciousness and it takes a moment to realize it’s just one of the maids stoking the fire at the end of the room, the sound multiplied by his headache, bouncing inside his skull like it’s a giant echo chamber.

He tries to roll on his back but pain spikes in his head, thin and shrill, and he hears mocking laughter coming from the door that leads to the bathroom. The maid leaves and Donghyuck comes in, barefoot and wrapped in a fluffy robe, his hair damp and his face stretched in a teasing, cold smile.

“You’re awake,” he says. “I’m impressed.”

“I might as well be dead,” Mark mumbles, even those few words a titanic effort. His tongue sticks to his palate, making it difficult to talk, and Donghyuck notices and pours him a glass of water from the jug next to his bed.

“Who brought me back?” Mark asks, when his mouth stops feeling like the bottom of a shoe.

“Surprisingly, you came back on your own,” Donghyuck replies, and Mark groans, trying to come up with memories and failing, his mind heavy with sensations and not rational thoughts.

“I don’t remember any of it.”

“Maybe it’s a good thing you don’t. It was a deplorable show.”

If Mark felt any better he’d probably also be able to feel some embarrassment, but he doesn’t.

“Who undressed me?” he asks instead, noticing his undergarments are still on and his shirt is still half tangled in one of his arms. The rest of his outfit is nowhere to be seen. Donghyuck looks at him, a sardonic smile dancing on his lips.

“You did it yourself,” he answers, and Mark frowns, eliciting a pulse of pain at his temples.

“You could have helped me,” he says, under his breath.

“Why would I do that?

Mark doesn’t answer – there’s no answering Donghyuck when he’s in the mood for being mean – just watches as his husband lets the robe slide to the ground and starts putting on the clean outfit he has assembled on his side of the bed. He has a meeting with the queen, Mark remembers, and Mark himself as a meeting with the king – and with Jaehyun – and it will be a long day for the both of them.

“You will get a new guard starting from today,” Mark blurts out, while Donghyuck slips on the pale blue vest. His fingers tugs at the hems of the fabric, pulling the two ends together. Mark can see his reflection on the big wall mirror biting his lips, focused on closing the fastenings.

“One of your boys?” Donghyuck asks, absent-mindedly.

“Not exactly. It’s Jaehyun from the Jung household.”

Mark stares intently at Donghyuck’s reflection while he talks, eager to see his reaction. Donghyuck’s fingers pause, resting at his throat – and Mark has a smoky, confused flash of Donghyuck’s fingers laying at _his_ throat, as he tries to undo the buttons of Mark’s shirt, which is very strange since Donghyuck said Mark undressed himself yesterday night. Donghyuck’s eyes widen, mouth opening in an exclamation that he refuses to let out. It’s like his whole body is crossed by a wave of emotions, a stone thrown against the limpid surface of his composure, shaking it in concentric circles before calm overpowers his emotions again. Their eyes meeting fleetingly through the mirror, and Donghyuck’s expression sharpens.

“And what do you think of that?” Donghyuck asks, his voice firm, his eyes burning in a silent challenge.

“I think my father is angry that one of our best knights broke the rules for you, and even angrier that I’m not willing to punish you in his stead,” Mark replies, “so he’s decided to put the both of us on a tighter least.”

“And why would he assign a national hero to me? Jaehyun is… He seemed like a nice person yesterday night. Very handsome, very charming.”

Mark can feel his own expression harden. They’re going to fight, he can feel it. He doesn’t know why, but Donghyuck seems to be in the mood for a fight, and Mark finds himself thirsty for blood too.

“Oh, he is” he replies, bitterly. He’s also brave and smart and handsome, and Donghyuck shouldn’t be praising him so easily, so openly, almost as if he’s trying to pick a fight. “Jaehyun is one of the most handsome and most charming people in the whole kingdom, but he’s a knight of the king, and loyal to a fault. He will do what the king tells him to do, and the king will tell him to stick to your side, every day, every moment, never letting you out of his sight until another knight comes to relieve him of his duties. And he will have to tell my father everything you do, everything _we_ do.”

Donghyuck frowns and finally turns around, sitting next to Mark on the unmade bed. He doesn’t break eye contact, and neither does Mark.

“I have nothing to hide,” Donghyuck says, slowly. “If he wants to spy on me I hope he makes himself comfortable. Jungwoo already did that, didn’t he? And reported to you at the end of the day.”

“Yes, you’re right. Jungwoo reported to me, not to my father. Do you know what the king thinks about you?”

“Oh, I do,” Donghyuck replies, through gritted teeth. “He’s always very vocal about it. Kids in my belly and my mouth shut, or something like that, isn’t it? Or, how you would put it, pliant and quiet.”

“Donghyuck!”

The tone is stern, and it is angrier than everything Mark has ever said to Donghyuck in the last few weeks. The defiant look he gets in response is like a slap to his face, the reminder that not much has really changed despite his best efforts, but Mark is too hungover right now to deal with the same old arguments Donghyuck always uses when he feels threatened.

Donghyuck must also feel his mood because he gets up, ready to leave.

“I hope the king is prepared for some very boring reports. I’ll be a flawless little prince.”

“What about practicing archery?” Mark asks.

“What about it?” Donghyuck bites back, and Mark feels annoyance creep through him again. Wasn’t Donghyuck the one who got caught doing something illegal in the first place?

“I’m just worried about you, Donghyuck. You have to lay low, at least for a while. No sneaking around alone, no inappropriate behavior. And don’t trust Jaehyun. He’s not on your side, no matter how convincing you are, no matter how rightful your reasons are.”

“When have I ever trusted someone here in the Vale?” Donghyuck hisses, his voice like a flute in the woods.

“Never,” Mark answers, bitterly. “And maybe that’s your problem.”

“Is that the problem, really? Listen to your words, Your Highness. You’re acting like a jealous child.”

“Donghyuck…”

“I’m late, I need to go.”

Donghyuck grabs one of the jackets – not one of Mark’s jackets, and Mark has to restrain himself from protesting.

“Are you going to give me any reason to be jealous of Jaehyun?” he asks, voice tight, and he hears Donghyuck snort, short and full of spite, as the door slams closed.

 

❃

 

In the silence of the room, still heavy with tension even after Donghyuck left, Mark sighs and pulls himself up until he’s sitting on the edge of the bed. He stares at his naked feet, at his jacket lying in a heap on the ground, next to Donghyuck’s golden sash. He remembers holding the embroidered silk in his hands yesterday night. He remembers telling Donghyuck he wanted to dance with him.

 _Is this why you were so angry this morning?_ he thinks. _What did I tell you yesterday night, to make you lash out like this?_

Donghyuck called him a jealous child, but Mark is worse. He’s a jealous man. A stupid, jealous man.

 _No one knows how love works, sunshine,_ he thinks, the words tasting familiar in his mouth, like honey whiskey, like Donghyuck’s lips must taste when he’s drunk.

Mark is up and running, barefoot, half-naked, absolutely scandalous, through their apartments. It reminds him of another run, another chase, the corridor next to the Council room, pinning Donghyuck to the wall with his body, watch him writhe in anger. Not in anger, he thinks, _not if I can help it_. He can’t bear to let Donghyuck be angry at him.

He catches Donghyuck at the stairwell, a few steps away from the door of their rooms.

“Wait!” he calls, and Donghyuck sees him and pales.

“Are you out of your mind?” he hisses, and Mark stills, breathless, hungover, and the marble floor is so cold, like ice under the plants of his feet.

“Probably, a little. I don’t really think well when it comes to you.”

He’s lucky, because Donghyuck is too speechless to scold him again.

“What if someone sees you?” he tries to say, but Mark covers his mouth with his palm.

“You’re right, I’m so jealous I can barely breathe. I can’t think, just the thought of Yoonoh Jung next to you, all the fucking time, is enough to make me want to punch someone. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

Donghyuck’s expression shifts behind Mark’s palm, now he looks terrified.

“Mark!” he whispers.

“I can’t help it! You’re my mate, Donghyuck, even if you don’t want me. I want you, and my father chose Jaehyun because he wants me to suffer and…”

Donghyuck pushes back, making Mark lose his grip on him.

“Can you shut up?” he scream-whispers. He catches Mark’s forearm, tight, and walks Mark back to their room, closing the door at their back and then pushing Mark against it.

“Of course your father wants you to suffer! You challenged his authority, more than once, and to protect your foreign consort… He must be furious right now!” Donghyuck leans in even closer, letting Mark feel the dampness in his hair, the smell of lavender he loves so much. “His cute, obedient little son, who never said no, who did everything as he was told… is stomping his feet on the ground, and for what? For whom? Can’t you see?”

“Of course I can see, I’m not stupid-”

“You are! If you behave like this you’re only playing his game! What if a maid had seen you? There are eyes everywhere among your stone walls, what if someone had told the king you ran after me in…” Donghyuck looks down, at Mark’s naked chest, and Mark can see his ears are bright pink. He’s so angry, but his scent is so sweet, almost pleased.

“You’re playing a dangerous game, and you’re playing it too carelessly! You can’t do this, Mark, because the more you expose yourself for me, the more angrier he’ll get!”

“Then explain it to me!”

“I don’t know either!” Donghyuck is screaming right now, and he must realize, because he covers his mouth with both hands. “I don’t know,” he repeats, this time in a whisper. “I’ve been doing everything I can to make things easier for myself, for us… And you’ve been messing everything up, since the beginning! You should’ve fucked me that first night, we should have kept on hating each other! You should’ve gotten a kid or two on me as soon as possible… And then you could’ve gone on with your life, being the perfect little child, and I would’ve been your distant consort, and your father wouldn’t have started this game of petty retaliation against us!”

He looks down, holding his head like he’s in pain. He also had a lot to drink yesterday night, Mark remembers, with a pang of guilt, and he also must be feeling like shit. He’s so good at hiding himself, Donghyuck, to the point that sometimes it’s easy to forget he has barely seen eighteen suns, but there’s a rawness in him right now, a rough edge – his golden mask falling to the side with a rattle to reveal the scared child underneath.

“I knew it, that night,” Donghyuck says, his voice lower and lower, and Mark finds himself drawing him in his arms to hear. “I knew you would be one of those who fall too deeply, too fast, with no middle ground. This is why I didn’t want you to fall in love with me…”

“Oh, is this the reason now?” Mark asks. “No bullshit about your first love now?”

Donghyuck looks up, glowering. “What did you think happened, with my first love? Someone couldn’t keep their head clear, someone couldn’t think straight, and two people got hurt. And it was raw and messy, and it lasted for a long, long time. And I had to see him, every day, because you can’t just…” He shakes his head, looks at Mark like he wants to slap him. “People in our position cannot afford to fall in love, Mark.”

He hits Mark’s naked chest, pushing him against the door. “People in our position need to keep a clear head,” he says, and his hands push against Mark’s chest again, punctuating his words with shove hard enough to make Mark’s back hit the wood, “not wander around with our dick out, you stupid, brainless…”

Mark kisses him, quick and fast, enough to surprise him.

“It’s too late, you know? You’re just too much for me, you’ve always been too much for me, Donghyuck of the Southern Islands.”

Donghyuck looks like he’s going to start crying soon, out of frustration maybe, or just because he can feel Mark’s emotion through their bond, unrestrained, overwhelming, so Mark kisses him again. Even if he doesn’t answer, even if his back goes taut under Mark’s hands, Mark kisses his mouth and his jaw, he tilts his head to kiss that spot under his ear – and something moves in Donghyuck’s throat, like a sound he’d rather choke on than let out. Mark’s lips stop at his scent gland and Donghyuck’s anger melts under them, his scent flaring, his body heating up.

“Scent me,” Mark says. “Let me scent you back.”

“What?”

“I won’t be able to think straight if you’re not carrying my scent and I’m not carrying yours.”

“Mark-” Donghyuck, says, _pleads_ , shaking his head, desperate, like a star on the brink of collapsing on itself, and Mark is willing to let himself fall in the dark hole it’ll leave behind.

“I’ll be good, I promise. I will let you flirt with Jaehyun, if that’s what my father wants to see, I’ll even pretend I don’t care. I know you don’t trust me. I know you can’t love me, but it’s alright, I will do it for both of us, I can do it all, but I need you… I need you to…”

“It doesn’t work like this,” Donghyuck says, and his words bring something back, a spark of a memory, honey whiskey. “It doesn’t work like this at all.”

Maybe it wasn’t the night that kissed Mark’s eyes, maybe it wasn’t the night that kissed Mark’s lips last time. Mark will never know, but he’s awake this time – he won’t forget this time.

“No one knows how love works, sunshine,” he says.

“Shut up, Minhyung, just shut up!”

This time, when Donghyuck kisses him, he can kiss back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dh: i'm angry  
> mk: i like you too much for you to be angry at me  
> dh: that's not how it works  
> mk: /cheesy stuff/  
> dh: UGJSIHKCOP SHUT UP MINHYUNG


	14. xiv. today, the dead grass catches fire, mercilessly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for being patient and waiting for me and wishing me a safe journey ;; I'm back to Korea and, although late, I was able to write the new chapter. It's very long, and it's only been quickly proofread by a kind angel I need to thank.  
> Before I go on with the art promo, a quick heads up. Next week I'll start attending university again. I will still try to keep up with the schedule but it's going to be extremely difficult for me to write as much as I'm writing now. Updates could be delayed to one chapter every 10 days or every two weeks, but we'll see how the first couple of weeks go. I've tried to follow the schedule as much as I could and I succeeded because it was summer, but please be understanding that university is already bullying me enough so I need to dedicate a lot of time to study ;;  
> \- Now, for the very crowded art promo corner of this week, in no particular order:  
> -[ donghyuck with long hair!!](https://twitter.com/kiwiddalgi/status/1165664781493293056) by twitter user @kiwiddalgi  
> \- [this golden donghyuck fanart](https://twitter.com/ShinyMarkhyuck/status/1165681565936050179) gifted to me by wattpad user @johnten69 (they also write fics, check them out <3)  
> \- [jeno and jaemin concept arts](https://twitter.com/milka__smilee/status/1158067880228872192) \+ [colored version of jeno](https://twitter.com/milka__smilee/status/1158077669742788609) by twitter user @milka__smilee for honeymouthed's spinoff (moonkissed and painted with snowdrops)  
> \- [perfect prince donghyuck](https://twitter.com/lunnarsystem/status/1164988534069125122) by twitter user @lunnarsystem, who was kind enough to be my muse for the first scene of this chapter ;;  
> I hope I haven't forgotten anyone, there was so much beautiful art inspired by this fic the last week, I'm so afraid I forgot something ;; if I did, or if you have drawn art and you'd like for it to be featured, dm me @aprilclaws on twitter <3<3  
> \- So, we have another long long chapter, full of worldbuilding and full of court dynamics and explanations. I'm trying to let you all take a deep, deep breath before the big drop. Also, things are going to become really hectic soon and I won't be able to do much worldbuilding from chapter 16 for a couple of chapters at least, so please absorb all the information now that you can.  
> \- I had been SO GOOD at answering comments last week, but this week I spent three days traveling to go back to Korea, and then I had to scramble to write the chapter, and again I left some comments (and ccs) unanswered. I'll try to answer them in the next few days, but again, I'll never stop saying it, thank you, for every word, for every comment, no matter how tiny. You have my deepest gratitude.
> 
> Sorry for the long notes, I'll try to be shorter next time. Please enjoy the chapter <3
> 
>  - [chapter title inspiration](https://avolitorial.tumblr.com/post/171398152982/bracketed-from-translation-by-anne-carson)

There are no walls in the temples of the Islands, but tall pillars, high ceilings, golden tiles on ancient floors and blue tiles on the roof, like a sunless sky waiting for the Goddess to fill it with light.

Mark was eleven, almost twelve years old when he first visited the Coraline, the red fortress in Sunfields, the biggest island of the archipelago. The princes of the Vale were invited to the jousting tournament thrown by the King of the Southern Islands to celebrate the name day of his wife and twin children. Sungmin was the heir and thus he wasn’t allowed to leave Dawyd, but Mark was the betrothed of the princess and he couldn’t miss it, he wouldn’t miss it for anything in the world. His father thought about it for a long time, and in the end he looked at Mark and said, “You don’t have to do it, but if you wish to participate, make sure you bring honor upon our kingdom.”

Despite looking forward to it, despite training for it, months and months of horse riding and learning how to hold a spear and watching Yukhei laugh at him when the training dummy hit him right in the chest with its blunt spear, Mark did not get to joust in the tournament - not after the mess that happened with Donghyuck the night of the archery competition.

But on the last day, after the tournament was over, Dongsoon closed her delicate fingers around Mark’s wrist and led him to the temple of the Goddess. Sightseeing, she explained it, as she held his hand under the colossal bronze brasier burning sweet oil and a thousand reef flowers at the entrance of the temple.

“Aren’t you afraid someone will steal it?” Mark had asked, warily eyeing the columns, the pretty volutes - those, at least, he recognized, carved by a famous artist of the Vale, the one who also decorated the throne room of the royal palace in Dawyd - the heavily decorated oil lamps hanging at the four corners of the main structure, and the mosaic leading the way to the innermost part of the temple, where only the priestess and her maidens could go. Like his books said, there are no walls in the Temple of the Coraline. The house of the Goddess is open and full of light, so different from the dark austerity of the temples in the Vale.

“Steal what?” Dongsoon had asked, looking at him like he was a fool.

“Everything,” Mark had answered, feeling awkward and silly, his ears blushing under his dark locks. Something so beautiful, something so precious, how is it that people don’t wish to take it for themselves? How is it that people don’t wish to protect it from harm?

Dongsoon had hid laughter behind a painted hand, and they both had jumped, startled, when someone else had snorted.

“The most important thing in the temple is the love of the Goddess, and love cannot be stolen.”

It’s a fleeting little memory, bright and swift like a dove in flight. It was summer - it was always summer in the islands, in Mark’s mind, because he only visited them in summer - and the sun was shining so bright it turned the stone too white to be stared at without blinking, and Donghyuck was leaning against one of the columns, his contours blurred by all that light, like one of the golden warriors carved in the white stone of the pediment above the entrance of the temple. When Mark had hissed at him - something poisonous, something mean - Donghyuck had pulled a face, his tongue pink and impudent and so unprincely, outright rude, and he had run away without looking back. Mark’s eyes had stayed fixed to his exposed back, to the streaks of angry red marring the golden skin - eleven lashes, one for every sun he saw, one for every year he was raised as a king only to act like an irresponsible, angry child.

Mark, whose behavior two days before had been as shameful as Donghyuck’s, if not worse, was not carrying the kiss of the whip on his back, mostly because it was forbidden to lash children in the Vale of the Giants, not even for show, and the king of the islands didn’t have the authority to punish an important guest like him. No, Mark’s punishment was subtler, laced in the way his father snorted at him, that night - the disappointment on his face, the spite in his eyes, the way he whispered, “If you were going to disobey me and accept his challenge, you should have at least gone and won it.”

But there was no way to win against Donghyuck back then, the golden prince of the golden islands who defied every rule with the arrogance of someone who knows that, one day, he will get to make the rules. Donghyuck, who challenged Mark to win back the hand of his sister in front of diplomatic envoys from the whole continent. Donghyuck, who won and halted his sword at Mark’s throat, and is now carrying the bite of the whip on his back like a war trophy for it.

(It wouldn’t scar. Dongsoon later told Mark that the Captain of the Red Keep of the Coraline had gone easy on the prince, the whipping mostly just for show, to appease the king of the Vale. Donghyuck was too unruly to be tamed, a stubborn young stallion that was born to lead his rider to the frontline of the battle, not a beast of burden that can be moved by whipping. “You have to forgive him,” Dongsoon had begged, holding Mark’s hands in her own, her big dark eyes all shiny and liquid with unshed tears. “He’s my twin brother, we’ve always been together. He just doesn’t want me to leave. He only wants me to be happy.” Mark had caved pretty easily in front of her golden tresses and button nose, her rose pink lips. Donghyuck had simply snorted as they bowed in front of each other for the formal public apology, and whispered, only for Mark to hear, “I bet my back doesn’t hurt as much as your pride.”)

Mark misses that temple without walls, that damned sun that seemed to claw at his eyes, the cheeky boy who ran away, his eleven lashes shining on his back through the rip on his shirt - Donghyuck was forbidden to hide the proof of the punishment on his skin, but rather than like a shame he wore it with pride. (And Mark has felt that skin under his hands, kissed the knobs of Donghyuck’s spine one by one, his tongue digging in the dimples at the small of Donghyuck’s back in a way that made his husband blush and squirm, seeking friction against the bed in a quiet sigh. Dongsoon was right, there wasn’t the faintest trace of a scar, but if they had been there, Mark would’ve just kissed them all anyway.)

The Temple of Dawyd is dark and tall, and stern like an old man, and the chants of the maidens break against his walls like waves, futilely, before they splash back over the people sitting on the benches in front of the altar.

The priestess stops the chanting with an imperious gesture and bows down, and all the maidens fall on their knees with her, soon followed by the rest of the crowd. Mark feels a jab on his side and then his brother is forcing him down as well. His eyes dart to the right, but Donghyuck is already kneeling, like a proper Prince Consort should, his eyes fixed on the stone floor - on the black and white square marble tiles, like a giant chessboard, and who knows what dangerous thoughts he’s thinking while he stares at it.

People don’t kneel to the Goddess in the islands, they stand up. They stand proud and tall, just like their cliffs, their blunt peaks cloaked in white, impalpable veils of cloud, that were raised from under the sea by the sudden flare of a giant volcano a long time ago. The legend says it was to save the Goddess from falling underwater, in the oceanic kingdom of her betrothed, when her parents pushed them down from the celestial kingdom to force her into an arranged marriage that would join the sea and the sky and destroy the world forever.

That’s why the islands are blessed by the Goddess, and that’s why in the islands there are no doors to trap her in, no doors to keep her out, just tall, echoing spaces where she can come riding the wind to hide from her fiancé who still, even now, keeps looking for her. That’s why Mark married Donghyuck under the afternoon sun instead of inside the Temple of Dawyd where all his ancestors have always married. He married Donghyuck with light falling on their faces like molten gold, the fingers of the Goddess caressing their cheeks in a warm blessing - like Donghyuck’s ancestors have always married. (The priestess of the Dawyd complained against etiquette, but the priestess of the Southern Islands is the priestess of the entire world and no one could deny her wish to officiate the marriage instead. And Mark wishes, really, that the Goddess really listened to her prayers and blessed this marriage, he hopes she’s still watching over the both of them now, even in the bleak, grey magnificence of the Temple of Dawyd, all strong, heavy stone and booming echoes.)

Next to Mark, Donghyuck accepts Jaehyun’s arm and stands up again, gracefully. He’s wearing a shirt, and a vest over it, and a jacket, and a cape is draped on his shoulders, and countless little frogs and ties and fastenings and buttons keep everything together, because people in the Vale believe that precious things need to be covered, protected, wrapped in a thousand chains so that no one can steal them. Mark thinks of temples built without walls to let the wind kiss their golden altars, he thinks of boys who run under the sun with their backs bared to let the midday sunlight kiss their skin, boys who taste of sweat, of honey, of flowers, of the creaking of cicadas and the crackling of the dried leaves under excited footsteps in the lazy heat of summer, and he thinks, first, that Donghyuck would look a lot more beautiful naked, and second, that Donghyuck was painfully right, even as a child. There’s no need for chain, for walls, for fears. Love cannot be stolen.

 

❃

 

The royal family leaves the temple at the end of the function. The King, the Queen, their wrists raised as if they’re holding hands, but barely touching each other’s skin. The Crown Prince and the Prince Consort come second, and Mark hides a relieved smile when Jaehyun is forced to take a step back to let Mark take Donghyuck’s hand.

Donghyuck will probably be nagged at by the Master of Ceremonies because he’s forgotten to wear gloves at function, again, but Mark likes feeling his skin. Despite all the buttery creams and scented oils the handmaidens insist on rubbing on his palms to make it smoother, softer, Donghyuck still bears the mark of the soldier on his skin, rough patches where the pommel of the sword bit into the flesh, reshaping it, a lumpiness in his fingers where he developed muscles strong enough to stretch a robust bow. Donghyuck lays his fingers on Mark’s palm, like tradition wants, but Mark’s fingers curl around them in a more sincere gesture that makes Donghyuck’s ears flash red.

He’s wearing green and silver today, the colors of the Vale, the only colors fit for a Prince Consort of the Vale. They look foreign and stern on him, but Mark knows Donghyuck chose them specifically to appease the terrible moods of the king.

Behind them comes Sungmin, the Eldest Prince, and his wife, the Princess of Alya, a region rich in luscious forest on the Western side of the Vale, and their daughters, two little princesses of four and seven years old that Mark has caught a couple of times playing hide-and-seek in the garden while Donghyuck takes tea with the Queen. The Princess of Dawyd, sister of the king, is notably absent - she’s celebrating the mid-autumn festival in her husband’s lands - but Yerim, her youngest daughter, has been allowed to travel to the palace to represent the whole family, a duty that usually fell on Taeyong’s shoulders.

Mark watches the rest of the guests scatter in the courtyard, up to the last estranged cousins. Royals tend to marry into royalty, but the kings of the Vale have always preferred to strengthen their ties with their own lords first, with the result that every single noble family of the valley has now a feeble claim to the throne. They are all very curious towards Donghyuck, the first foreign consort in the last four generations, and Mark can see the hungry glances directed to their joined hands - and, if he can see them, the king certainly can as well.

He meets Donghyuck’s eyes and finds a veil of thinly disguised annoyance in them, also echoing through the bond they share and their joined hands. _Didn’t we agree on discretion?_ Donghyuck seems to be asking, but Mark knows the lords will whisper if he shows affection towards his husband and they will whisper if he doesn’t. The lords will whisper anyway, because it’s Donghyuck.

In a religious, heavy silence, the boy chosen to start the celebrations for the end of the harvest carries a torch to the middle of the square. There, the farmers have amassed a little mound of twigs and shrubs, and the boy lets the kiss of the torch linger at the base of the bonfire. In a similar fashion, all the farmers of the Vale are now burning the scrapes of their fields as they start to clean them in preparation for the early snow that will hit the country earlier and harder this year than any other year before, according to the priestess.

Mark watches Donghyuck tighten the hems of his heavy cape, hiding his face in the woollen braids. He must be cold, Mark realizes.

A column of warm, golden light erupts in the middle of the square as the mound of twigs and dry grass finally catches fire, red and golden and vicious, running all around its perimeter before engulfing it completely. Donghyuck’s eyes widen as he takes one step closer, almost mesmerized, extending his hands towards the flames to steal a little of their warmth, and light dances on his face making him look like a son of the sun, a son of the fire, bathing in the reflection of flames, unburnt.

The priestess hisses something and Jaehyun steps forward to gently, firmly yank Donghyuck back, and Mark has to bite his tongue and tighten his fists until his nails are digging into his palm. He’d gladly draw Donghyuck closer, hide him in his jacket and lay a kiss on the back of his neck, but there are too many people. There is etiquette, there are appearances to upkeep. He can’t even take Donghyuck away, back inside, in front of the fireplace, where he won’t be crushed by the cold of the upcoming winter. They have to wait until the end of the ceremony.

And so they wait, standing next to each other in silence, until the lords have bid their goodbyes to the royal family. Only then Mark is free to walk closer to Donghyuck, ask him if he wishes to leave.

“Not so fast, Your Highness.” Mark turns. The Priestess of Dawyd is old and wiry, and even her voice is wrinkly. “I wish to speak with the Prince Consort about his upcoming heat, if you want the Goddess to bless you with a child.”

Mark hesitates, feeling Donghyuck tense next to him. He wants to ask Donghyuck if this will be alright for him, but there’s no way they can refuse a request of the Priestess, whether Donghyuck wants it or not. On Donghyuck’s other side, Jaehyun clears his throat, and Mark lets go of Donghyuck’s hand, almost burned.

The Priestess sends him a sharp look, before she turns and leaves. Donghyuck follows her back inside the temple, the sea of maidens closing behind him and blocking him at Mark’s sight.

“You really have it bad.”

Jaehyun sounds… angry maybe, but more like displeased.

“He’s my husband. That’s what they say during the marriage vows, to love each other, to protect each other.”

“You have no reason to protect him from the Priestess, Mark. She’s on your side.”

 _She’s on my father’s side, as long as he reigns,_ Mark thinks, but he doesn’t answer, and Jaehyun’s frown only deepens at his silence.

“Besides,” he continues, sneaking a glance to the side to check how many guards are there, how far they are, how much they can guess of the conversation he’s currently having with the Crown Prince, “loving your husband isn’t your only duty involving him. Or have you forgotten?”

“How could I?” Mark replies, low. There’s always someone willing to remind him that happiness is not his duty. Not his happiness, nor Donghyuck’s. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but the whole kingdom has been telling me I should fuck my husband more, get him pregnant as soon as possible. If it’s about that, you can save your breath, Yoonoh.”

The name, that had always tasted happy and sweet in Mark’s name, comes out extremely poisonous this time. Mark doesn’t take it back. For everyone else, using someone’s birth name instead of their chosen one could end up in a duel for honor, but Mark is the Crown Prince, after all.

“Do you think I wouldn’t like to spend more time with him? Do you think I do not like him enough?” Jaehyun’s ears flush and his scent shifts, not much but enough for Mark to be aware of it. “But there are other things to consider. You haven’t seen him when he first arrived here. He didn’t trust anyone. He didn’t trust me. A child that early would’ve crushed him and our marriage.”

“You haven’t been at the border recently, Your Highness,” Jaehyun says, and it hurts, a few days ago he would’ve called him Mark, but ever since he started guarding Donghyuck Jaehyun changed too. It is no mystery what he thinks of Mark. “You don’t know how easy it would be to crush us if this alliance doesn’t hold. I understand why you’re partial to him, Donghyuck is lovely-”

The spike in Mark’s scent is so deep that even the guards at the three openings of the square turn to look at them, and Jaehyun takes a step back, his beautiful face pale.

“I apologize, I did not…”

“But you did. Like does everyone else. Except Donghyuck is my mate, not yours, not anyone else’s, and it’s my duty to protect him.”

“You also have a duty towards the Vale, Your Majesty, and you must honor it before anything else.”

Mark turns towards him. He’s beyond sure right now that all the guards still in the square are slowly trying to inch closer and get a whisper of this conversation that’s making the beloved hero and the humble prince of the country so angry at each other, so he lowers his voice even more.

“And end up like you did?” he asks, and the fury in Jaehyun’s eyes is so strong that Mark is afraid he will really be challenged for honor. But Jaehyun only takes a step back, his face carefully neutral again.

“I thought you weren’t picking sides,” he says, and even his voice is neutral, his feelings hidden behind an opaque veil.

Mark bites back a bitter smile. He doesn’t care about the fight between Dongyoung and Jaehyun, but Donghyuck said he’s on his own side, and that’s where Mark wants to be as well. Jaehyun too, will have to choose a side soon. As much as he tries to convince himself he’s on the side of the royal family, the shield who protects them and the sword who defends them, he too will have to choose whether he stands with Mark or with the king.

“I’m sorry, Jaehyun. Sometimes, even not picking any side means picking the wrong side.”

 

❃

 

In the valley surrounding the palace, small fires are lit, their smoke billowing in lazy columns towards the sky. From the hill upon which Dawyd is built, they look like small dark threads connecting the valley to the clouds above. Mark stares at them through the window, one knee shaking nervously, and his mind summons the smell of burnt grass and smoke and the earth as it prepares to go to sleep.

One hand lands on his shoulder, making him jump, startled. He turns, and smiles instinctively as he meets his mother’s amused eyes.

“Too bored of the party, my son?”

They both look towards the loud hall, another banquet, another celebration. They will go on for the rest of the week, when the Lord of the Land and his knights will come back from their journey through the different counties of the kingdom. Until last year, Mark’s father had been the one doing the last Greeting of the year, riding across his land to visit the bannermen of the Vale one by one, escorted by his best knights. This year, he has entrusted this duty to Mark and his knights, Yukhei, Hendery, Jungwoo - the last one only because both Mark and Jaehyun insisted. They will leave tomorrow, after supper, and they will come back after seven days if the weather holds.

“Not really bored,” Mark answers. “Just a bit antsy.”

The queen nods and sits next to him on the sofa, in the place that had been Donghyuck’s before Mark’s cousin begged him for a dance. It’s not really orthodox, for a mated male Omega to be invited to dance by an unmated female Beta, but Mark knows Yerim has had a crush on Donghyuck since she was twelve years old. She might have gotten to marry him, had he been an Alpha - she had dreamed to do that - but now the only thing she can demand from him is a dance, and no one felt cruel enough to refuse this last wish.

“They look quite pretty, don’t they?” the queen asks. Her eyes follow the direction of Mark’s gaze to find Donghyuck swirling Yerim around the room. She’s laughing, and Donghyuck is trying so hard not to laugh with her. Mark has to look away, to the teasing glint in his mother’s eyes.

“You can say it. I already know,” he says, with a pout. “A prince shouldn’t act like this.”

“Princes are men first, Mark. It’s cute that you’re acting jealous.”

“Is it that obvious?”

She only smiles wider.

“I don’t think you’ve ever stopped glaring since you set foot in the room.”

Mark looks down, feeling the high collar of the shirt bite at his skin. Did Donghyuck notice? Did he think Mark was a loser? A lovesick fool, he said last night, as Mark sank between his thighs, and in that moment it had sounded sweet, almost fond.

“You shouldn’t be ashamed of caring for your mate, Mark. It might not be appropriate for a prince, but it’s appropriate for a man.” When Mark looks at his mother, he can see that small pang of bitterness he can hear in her voice reaching her eyes, melting in that warm brown before it trickles down, to her cheeks, to her lips, freezing the laughter on top of her tongue. “Your father might disagree, but I hope I raised a good man before a good prince.”

Oh, there it is. The only thing that can make Mark’s mother stop smiling. Some goddesses land on golden islands, some cannot escape their engagement, after all.

“But let’s not sour this afternoon by thinking about what your father would want, Minhyung,” she says, recovering his smile with the grace of a consummate actress. “It is such a lovely afternoon, after all. It would be even prettier if you were the one swirling your husband around the dancefloor, don’t you think?”

Mark scratches his head awkwardly. He has a very confused recollection of Donghyuck telling him Mark should get on his knees if he wants to ask for a dance, and he has a vague idea his father wouldn’t appreciate the show - and Donghyuck probably wouldn’t either, not right now at least. Unfortunately for Mark, he’s not the queen who has been sitting in the second highest chair of the entire kingdom for the past thirty-five years, long enough to have earned the right to ignore the king's wishes. He's just a mere Crown Prince threading dangerous waters, unknown waters, shark-infested waters.

“Maybe next time, mother,” he says, bowing in apology.

“Maybe?”

“Definitely next time, I promise.”

“Since you have promised, I will trust you. Now take your boy and leave, my son.”

“Leave? I doubt the king…”

“Didn’t I tell you to stop worrying about what your father would want, Minhyung? The king is,” Mark can see the way her nose scrunches, “too inebriated to notice you’re going anyway. And even if he did, what could he say? You’re leaving tomorrow, every other knight has been granted a night to spend with their loved ones. So get your boy, take him wherever you want, and hold him tight, my son. Don’t ever turn into someone whose wishes he’d ever want to stop worrying about.”

The music stops, the dancers bow to each other. Mark sees Yerim moving closer, ready to ask for another dance, but he’s already walking there, almost sneaking up on them, and something in his gaze must be off because Yerim scampers away immediately.

“Would you look at that?” whispers Donghyuck. “Someone scared away my lady.”

“Someone stole away my husband,” Mark replies, speaking right into his ear. “And that someone is me, come on.”

Donghyuck trips a little, but lets Mark lead him through the crowded dance floor.

“Are you sure we can…”

“Trust me.”

This is the best moment to sneak out, as all the dancers leave the center of the room at the same time. Mark sees Jaehyun at the corner of his eye, talking to one of the lords. Their eyes meet and Mark can read the apology on Jaehyun’s lips as he disengage from the conversation to pursue them. He can’t, however, because the queen walks right in front of him, and while the hero of the country can get rid of a meager lord, he still cannot dodge a queen so easily.

“We have backup,” Mark whispers, pushing Donghyuck towards a curtain that, pulled, reveals a small door. The secret escape way the queen uses whenever she wants to leave these events, a shortcut towards the garden.

“After you, Your Grace,” Mark says, and Donghyuck raises his eyebrows and scoffs, diving into the darkness of the tunnel, Mark right behind him, the music of the ballroom only a faint, distorted echo vibrating through the stonewalls of the passage.

 

❃

 

The sun is setting slowly behind the long line of the horizon when Mark and Donghyuck resurface from their long hike under the palace and into the gardens of the Queen. The sun is bleeding red into everything - the sky, the ground, the fallen leaves and the ones that still hold onto their branches stubbornly. They, too, will fall soon. To be reborn again, the world must surrender and die.

Donghyuck lets out a soft exclamation at the sight, but it soon evolves into a full body shiver when the wind blows at his nape and under the collar of his shirt.

Mark wraps a hand around his shoulders.

“Come on, it’s too cold to stay we here. We can walk around the castle and come back to our rooms. I’ll draw you a bath.”

“Don’t we have to go back to the party at some point?”

“Do you want to go back?” Mark asks, and Donghyuck shrugs.

“Not really. Your cousin is a good dancer, but I just don’t have it in me today.”

They follow the boulevards of maple trees, walking in silence as red leaves fall around them and crunch under their feet. Mark would like to go back immediately, but Donghyuck convinces him to make a small detour, walking until they’re on top of a small hill and they can see the forest extending for miles around them, red and orange and yellow, burning in the last light of the sun. On its left, the first night lights of the city have already started burning. Soon enough they will be the only lights left.

“I’m glad,” Donghyuck says, with a sigh. “The queen told me the view is amazing from here, especially around this season, but you’re always too busy to come with me. And the leaves will have all fallen when you come back from the Greeting…”

“You could’ve asked,” Mark says. “If you wish to spend time with me, you can ask. I can’t always make it happen, but I can try.”

Donghyuck shrugs.

“Your father would’ve gotten angry. He’s giving you so many things to do lately… I don’t think he wants us to spend time together, which is, at this point, ironic. How can we give him a royal heir if we don’t spend time together?”

Donghyuck’s body moves closer to Mark’s when another rush of wind shakes the woods around them, raising dust and fallen leaves in small, colorful whirlwinds. But Donghyuck is right, the king is purposefully trying to keep the two of them from spending time together. Until last year he wouldn’t even allow Mark to trail along for the autumnal Greeting, and now suddenly he’s entrusting it to him, not giving him the slightest chance to refuse.

“Why does my father fear you so much now? He was so disappointed when we weren’t spending time together…”

Donghyuck lets out a little, sour smile, as they turn around and slowly starts walking bacl.

“Do you know why your father agreed so easily to our marriage?” Donghyuck asks, searching for the answer in Mark’s eyes. “Ah, you don’t. The king of the Vale liked my sister because she was polite and obedient - well, that’s what he thought her to be - and because he knew you were only marrying her for duty, just like he had married his queen for duty. If you had married Dongsoon, if she had not been an Alpha, I’m sure she would’ve already been pregnant by now.”

That’s… true. Mark wouldn’t have waited. He wouldn’t have had any reason to wait for Dongsoon to be ready for something she had prepared on for her whole life.

“In my case, that’s a bit different. We didn’t get along, and I wasn’t raised as an Omega, which made everything more complicated. In addition, my body… as a male Omega, I wouldn’t have been the first choice for a royal consort…” Donghyuck shrugs, uncomfortable, refusing to meet Mark’s eyes. “But, you know, there was no other choice, and as far as I know, there has never really been a dire need for love in arranged marriages. In fact, your father was even relieved we didn’t get along. It just made everything easier for him.”

“But why? Isn’t it better if we love each other?”

Donghyuck stops, his eyes dark and a little sad. “You are one of the most idealistic people I’ve ever met, Mark, but you’re also head over heels for me, and everyone with eyes could see that. Things might make sense in your mind, but all your king can see is that you’re ready to disregard his orders for my sake, that you’re ready to put your duties towards me before your country.”

“That’s not true!”

“But that’s what it looks like! You’ve been ignoring your father’s orders of getting me pregnant since three months ago, and you’ve been doing it for me…”

“I’ve been doing it for _us_ -”

“But there wasn’t supposed to be an _us_ , Mark! I wasn’t supposed to be anything more than a tool, a insurance on our countries’ peace. Just because we have an alliance it doesn’t means we’re allies. The Vale has never liked the Islands. You tried to conquer us countless times in the past, and we’ve always defeated you, and we don’t trust each other.”

They’ve long reached the end of the gardens, but Mark refuses to move. Donghyuck is shaking, from the cold or from anger or from fear, Mark doesn’t know.

“You know your country better than I do, your dynasty has always married within its own borders, and in any other situation you would’ve ended up marrying your cousin Yerim, just like your brother married the lady of Alya. I’m the first foreign consort in the last seven generation at least, and people might have come to like me because they think I’m pretty, they think I’m a novelty, they like the money our marriage will bring into the Royal Treaure, but the lords…”

Oh, the lords treat Donghyuck kindly enough, but it’s true that they don’t trust him.

“Your father knew that I was raised to be a king. Before my body, before my lack of knowledge about my Omega status, that has always been the biggest obstacle to our marriage. But it wasn’t an insourmountable obstacle. You just needed to get me pregnant, then I would’ve spent the rest of my life confined to my chamber, unable to be a threat to anything.”

“Why? What kind of threat can you be now?”

Donghyuck steps closer, until they’re nothing more than a couple of lovers enjoying a sweet embrace. Donghyuck’s body is warm, almost feverish, his voice even warmer.

“Think about it, Mark, you said you’re willing to bend all the rules for me, didn’t you? So, can you imagine what would happen if some unfortunate accident were to involve your father? You’d become king. A king who’s subjected to the whims of his foreign husband sitting on the throne of the Vale, that’s what your father is worried about.”

“No, this is ridiculous, this is… He would never think anything like that…”

Donghyuck smacks his lips together, and it sound so, so bitter.

“Are you sure? Then why would he assign Jaehyun, one of his best and most trusted soldiers, to my safety? Why, if I’m more than capable enough to defend myself? You said it yourself, Jaehyun is not here to protect me but to control me. He’s here to make sure that I’m not casually plotting to kill the king.”

The wind blows and they stand, at the edge of the woods. The last sparks of red glitter at the horizon, and then they disappear completely. The air smells like smoke and cold earth, life is slowly crawling underground to sleep. Mark feels like doing the same. How easy it was, when life was just sparring with Yukhei, leading the army against border invaders, or pirates, or forest thugs, when his father told him what to do and Mark could just do it. When he didn’t have to worry about how what his husband could gain from murdering his father.

His lips are dry, the inside of his mouth his lined with sandpaper. He looks at Donghyuck, at his soft blonde locks, his tender lips, the little moles on his face. He looks at Donghyuck and he feels his heartbeat through the bond. He licks his lips, summons his voice and prays it’s strong enough to ask the right question. If Donghyuck lies, he trusts himself to feel it.

“Are you?” he asks. “Are you plotting to kill the king, Donghyuck?”

And Donghyuck puts his hands on Mark’s shoulder to keep his balance as he leans closer, close enough that his nose is rubbing against Mark’s, their lips brushing against each other as he speaks.

“And what if I was?”

The wind howls around them, like a petty, angry ghost. It throws Donghyuck’s blond locks against Mark’s face, and sticks its snow-cold fingers - they were buried under the perennial ice of the Clairs only a couple of hours ago - under the collar of Mark’s shirt, making him shiver. Mark’s hands close around Donghyuck hips, not drawing closer, not pushing him farther, just pinning him there. Mark could kill him, if he wanted. It would be worse than killing his own self, but he could. He would, for his country, no matter how much he loves Donghyuck.

“I’d kill you,” he says, and Donghyuck exhales, and that too, could almost be a kiss. “But I don’t believe you are.”

“You have no way to know,” Donghyuck counters, but Mark rubs his thumbs on the hard ridges of Donghyuck’s hipbones, lazily, like they really are just lovers teasing each other for a kiss they could take whenever they want, and not the two princes of two enemy countries, the two married princes of two enemy countries, quietly debating the possibility of high treason.

But Mark trusts Donghyuck. Since this boy came to the palace, he’s been closed off, quiet, and angry, and secretive, but he’s never lied to Mark. He’s been brutally honest, and sharp, and honorable.

“If you had told me you loved me,” Mark starts, and Donghyuck’s eyes widen, “I wouldn’t have believed you.”

“Really?”

“I feel unspeakable things for you, but I’m not stupid, my love. You could’ve used my feelings for you, and you know very well how deep they are, to the point that I can’t even express them and I can only act like a fool in front of you… But I would’ve been your fool, if you had wanted me.”

 _And you didn’t want me._ As much as it breaks Mark’s heart, it’s the reason he can trust Donghyuck, who was never afraid to lay the truth in front of Mark, no matter how hard and unpleasant. No matter how heartbreaking. Donghyuck never wanted him, Donghyuck never tried to use him. Mark did it all by himself. What a fool, indeed.

Donghyuck lays his head on Mark’s shoulder, sighs forlornly against Mark’s collarbone - and Mark can feel his breath in his bones, the warmth cutting through the endless layers of fabric to go straight to the skin, carried by the bond.

“I don’t need another fool, Minhyung. Not when I know that, among the two of us, the real fool has always been me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm too tired to write witty end notes this time OTL  
> Can you guess what the big thing happening in chapter 15 is going to be? I gave a few hints...


	15. xv. words like sand running down chests, over hips, pooling at bare feet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not going to cry more over all the beautiful fanarts this fic is receiving because I feel like I'm going to drown someone in tears of happiness but please give all these people a lot of love, they're giving shape and colors to my words and it's beautiful ;;  
> \- [hyuck concept art](https://twitter.com/hoshimochim/status/1164967775028285440) and [more hyuck concept art](https://twitter.com/hoshimochim/status/1165296199890591744) by @hoshimochim  
> \- [markhyuck dancing together](https://twitter.com/oddjetlag/status/1166754038278287361) by @oddjetlag  
> \- [prince mark lee hours open for the next 43 centuries](https://twitter.com/lunnarsystem/status/1167136493506314240) by @lunnarsystem  
> \- [the prince consort is lovely](https://twitter.com/justonce_ismile/status/1168368702020083712) by @justonce_ismile  
> \- Plus the amazingly talented @sunshyun upgraded my terrible hand-drawn map of the Vale and designed [a real map of the continent](https://twitter.com/sunshyun/status/1165987193430663168), it's so well done it's literally breathtaking, please give a lot of love to this beautiful art too.  
> -So now that the nice part is over, let's get over the kneeling part. I'm really sorry for the late update. I'm going to say it now so that everyone is aware. I cannot keep up with a weekly schedule anymore, at least for the next month because i have a big assignment at the end of the month (and a bigger one at the end of the semester but we worry about that later) and this was only day one of classes so I'm already crying. Until at least the first assignment is out of the way there will be no set schedule for updates, which doesn't mean no updates until next month but there won't be a set day for updates. I'll just publish when I'm ready.  
> -Now, I know you all want to see more markhyuck, and I know I promised you something big, but writing defied my expectations. Also, I know this feels like a lot like a filler chapter, and there's definitely a lot of stuff happening that might not feel necessary for the development of markhyuck's plot, but trust me, it is. Plus, I won't have time to introduce either Taeyong or Johnny properly in the future because they don't live in the capital, so I needed to establish them a little before we move on with the end of part one. (Yes, there are narrative arcs and we're almost at the end of the first one.)  
> -Most of you have already guessed what's going to happen very soon and I'm super nervous about getting to write that part, but please be a little more patient and enjoy this chapter.  
> -(Also this is not betaed at all, and I'm super nervous about the pacing and a lot of other things, but I've kept people waiting way too long.)  
> \- I'm really sorry for not being able to reply almost any of the comments in chapter 14. It would take me at least other two days and I wanted to publish the chapter. I'll answer them in the next few days, forgive me. You're always very generous with praise and comments, here and on cc and on twitter, and it's really important to me that I answer every single comment because people took time to write them, so even if I'm late I promise I'll reply all the unanswered comments ;; Thank you again for the unwavering support, love you all <3
> 
> \- [chapter title inspiration](https://avolitorial.tumblr.com/post/161109604282/from-translation-by-anne-carson-expansions-on)

Dawn lifts the dark veil of the night with pink fingers, and Mark stirs when she sits at the edge of the bed to caress his face. Next to him, Donghyuck is still sleeping, his face squashed against the pillow, his naked shoulders bathed in faint gold. Mark leans over to lay a kiss on his nape and Donghyuck’s curly, messy locks brush against his nose, and Donghyuck exhales deeply, sinking into the mattress as he tries to hold onto his dream. Mark nuzzles one last time against his neck - Donghyuck smells amazing, golden and summery, like laughter and the tinker of tiny wind chimes, but underneath, deeper, Mark can feel his scent simmer and churn, like sweet wine ready to be decanted into hard, heady liquor. He inhales, feeling the scent wash up against his skull, breaking against his brain like a giant wave that dulls and lights up his senses at the same time. Hard, heady liquor is the right description because just being near Donghyuck enough to make him feel drunk. He swallows and tugs the blanket up until it’s shielding Donghyuck’s skin from the crispy autumnal hair and Mark’s mind from the sweet ruin of his scent.

Outside, through the closed door, he can already hear the handmaidens scampering around, preparing the luggage the servants will have to carry through the kingdom as they trail behind the Crown Prince and his knights. Mark disentangles his body from the wrinkled sheets and smiles when Donghyuck rolls on his back, his face partially covered by the blanket, eyes swollen and hair a bird’s nest.

“Already?” he mumbles, his voice hoarse from sleep.

“I need to get things ready,” Mark replies, and Donghyuck squeezes his eyes shut and scrunches his nose.

“You can get things ready later, you’re going to be gone for so long… I think you can spare another hour in bed with me…”

“I’m getting things done now so I can spend time with you before I leave,” Mark replies, and Donghyuck snorts.

“Yes, down in the library, with three guards at the door and one inside… Guards can’t enter the bedroom, though…”

It’s not like Donghyuck to be this needy, and Mark doesn’t know how much of it is due to Mark’s separation anxiety seeping through the bond, how much it’s the biological instinct to be close to his Alpha acting up, and how much it’s just Donghyuck honestly wanting him to stay, Donghyuck being afraid of missing him, Donghyuck caring for Mark and not for the relief his pheromones can give him. It’s always so difficult to tell, especially with Donghyuck purposefully refusing to be honest.

Mark stops trying to fasten his belt to steal a look at Donghyuck’s heart-shaped pout, and he must have smiled at that, like a smug, lovesick fool, because Donghyuck’s pout intensifies and his face is flushed, and he throws a pillow at Mark.

“Well, why are you still here? Goddess, can’t wait for you to leave…”

Mark dodges the soft bullet, and pounces on the bed. He pins Donghyuck’s wrists down, caging him with his body as the urgence to leave fades to the back of his mind. Donghyuck is warm and loose-limbed from sleep. He offers a very feeble resistance, only pretending to strain against Mark’s hold and eventually giving up, choosing to grind up against the tense line of the blanket trapped between the weight of Mark’s thighs instead.

“Don’t do that, you know I don’t have time to take care of it. I should already be downstairs.”

“To do what? You’re already dressed, what else do you need to ride around the countryside? You could ride me, and that doesn’t even require clothes.”

Mark doesn’t let indulge in the image. He needs to meet his father and talk about his journey. Not that he wants the king’s advice, especially not today, but he does need it. The Greeting is not only a trip through the land, it’s a way to secure the allegiance of the feudatars, to check if the lords - and the people living under them - are happy and satisfied, if the kingdom is at peace. And Mark can be angry with his father, but under him the kingdom has always been at peace.

And after meeting the king he needs to talk to the physician, something he’s been meaning to do for days already. With Donghyuck’s heat so close, looming upon them like an omen of doom, he desperately needs advice, and he’s not sure he’ll have the time to ask for it when he returns.

Donghyuck seems to sense the shift in his mood because his face, too, falls. He struggles a little, to tell Mark to let his wrists go, and when Mark does it he cups Mark’s face with one hand, curling the other on his nape to drag him down.

“It’s just a week,” he says. “You spent the first two months of our marriage refusing to look at me, begging your father to send you on an errand on the Clairs just because you loathed to share a bed with me… You have no reason to sulk now.”

“Yesterday, what you said about my father…”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m not going to do anything stupid, no matter what his suspicions are. He can’t accuse me if I don’t do anything wrong. And I’ll behave, I promise. No sneaking out, no talking back, no forgetting to wear my gloves in public. I’ll still be here when you come back.”

“What did the priestess tell you after the bonfire?” Mark asks, and he can feel that Donghyuck wants to evade his eyes, but they’re too close, there’s nowhere else to look.

“She gave me advice for my upcoming heat,” he murmurs. “She told me to drink wine. It will be easier if I’m more… pliant, since it’s the first time.”

Pliant and quiet. Mark’s eyes flash in rage and maybe shame, thinking that those words are going to haunt him forever. He quickly looks down, unable to hide his face from Donghyuck.

“She should mind her own business,” he bites, through gritted teeth. “And you should talk about your heat with the physician, not her.”

“I will, don’t worry. But she told me it’s close… Any day now.”

Oh, it is close. Mark can smell it on him now. It might hit before he comes back, and that’s what worries him the most, but he also understands why the king is sending him away now. They say the days before an Omega’s heat, when their scent is at its peak, flaring and spiking and bubbling and swelling right before it bursts, are the most difficult to withstand for an Alpha. It’s biological, because heat and childbirth are an Omega’s most vulnerable moments - the first heat and the first childbirth the worst of them all - and Alphas are naturally wired to take care of their mates, to protect them from all dangers, even more during those moments. If Mark stayed, he would attack anyone getting closer to his Omega. If Mark stayed, he would do anything Donghyuck could ask of him, anything for his Omega, to make him happy. In that state, Donghyuck could ask him to kill his best friend and Mark… he would be strong enough to stop himself, but he would think about it, and that scares him.

“You know I need to leave, but I’ll come back, alright? You won’t have to deal with this alone. I’ll be here for you.”

Donghyuck nods weakly. “You better.”

Mark kisses his button nose, ignores Donghyuck’s fake retching sound and waltz through the room towards the door.

“Dress up, my darling, and keep a handkerchief ready for me when I leave. I’ll wear it against my heart and think of you all the time.”

He can’t hear Donghyuck’s reply, but it’s something with _heart_ and _dagger_ , probably a murder omen. Mark looks at the closed door, the laughter dying in his throat when he realizes it’s the last time he sees it for a whole week. But Donghyuck promised him he would behave, now it’s Mark’s time to honor his side of the deal. _Do what the king says, don’t give him any reason to doubt of you, of us._ For Donghyuck, he can do it. He must do it.

 

❃

 

“Your Highness, the doctor has asked for you.”

Mark pats the neck of his palfrey for a last time, letting his fingers thread through its silver mane. He gives the small attendant boy instructions to check the saddle and make the horse drink more water, and finally turns towards the the royal physician.

“Thank you for finding the time to talk to me on such a short notice,” he says, to which the man bows.

“No, thank you for asking for my humble advice.” The old man looks around, at the horses nervously stamping their feet on the ground, drunk off the tension before a big departure. “Is there somewhere else we could talk?”

“Here,” Mark says, leading the man outside the stables, to the low, large building on the side of the dusty courtyard that accommodates both the registers of the stables and the living quarters of the palace blacksmith. The backsmith is on one corner, and he raises his head a little when he sees the prince entering, but Mark gestures for him to keep doing his job and holds the door of the archive open for the doctor.

“I’m really sorry for the last minute call,” he explains, as he closes the door. “The audience with the king lasted longer than I expected.”

“I’m surprised your father is sending you alone to do the Greeting for the first time,” the physician comments, politely, and Mark does his best to turn a grimace into a smile, stopping himself to commenting that his father seemed way too eager to get rid of him this time.

“It’s not anything difficult,” he says, instead. “I’ve been in the Council of the Lords long enough to be familiar with all of them, and now that I’m married it’s time I start taking a more active role in the affairs of the kingdom, apparently.”

“Very true, and very commendable of you to execute your father’s will, especially now that your husband seems so close to such a delicate time.”

“It’s not like we had a choice, did we?” This time Mark does grimace, and wipes his palm on his forehead to pin back some unruly dark curls. “The Greeting cannot be moved and Donghyuck’s heat cannot be moved either. We just had a very bad timing this time.”

“That’s partly true. We cannot move the Greeting, but let me reassure you. I doubt the Consort Prince’s heat will reach its peak before you come home. After all, you’re only going to stay away for one week.”

“If the weather holds,” Mark adds.

“It will hold. And if it doesn’t, the prince will hold himself back instead. You’re mated, his own body will try to stop the process as long as it can until you can get to him.”

“I don’t think it can get a lot worse than it already is,” Mark mutters, unconvinced - Donghyuck was barely holding it in this morning, his scent running wild just under the surface of the skin, ready to break the wheel of Mark’s self control any time, and he can’t imagine it becoming even worse than that - but the doctor just laughs at him.

“You are a very naive man, my prince, and you have no idea how strong this heat is going to be, on both of you. Perhaps it is good that you’re not spending this week with your mate, or we would have had to pry you off him to let the both of you eat at some point.”

Perhaps it is good, but Mark still would rather not leave. Not that his opinion ever mattered.

“But as much as you’re curious about your husband’s heat, I’m sure you didn’t call me to spoil your surprise about how powerful is going to be. Or did you, Your Highness?”

Mark looks at the old man, leaning back to sit in the chair that is usually occupied by one of the scribes who compile the royal inventory. Mark swallows.

“You’re right, I didn’t. My question is of a different nature. The king demands an heir,” he says, instead, because his opinion doesn’t matter, not to the king, not to the lords, but if Mark doesn’t do something about it it will never, ever matter. “He told me it’s essential to maintain peace at the borders with the Empire.”

The man in front of Mark is one of the wisest men in the whole palace. You don’t rise in ranks until you become the Royal Physician, the most trusted doctor of the whole kingdom, if you lack wisdom. He looks at Mark right in the eyes, smiles, pleasantly, politely.

“I’m a mere doctor, Your Highness, not a politician. Who am I to contradict the king?”

“Will Donghyuck be able to conceive a child?” Mark presses. “Would it be safe?”

“Why does it matter, if the king ordered it to happen?”

Mark hesitates. Jaeho, once Seo Jaeho, now Lee Jaeho, who took the surname of his mate when he came down from the mountains to follow the Lady of the Clairs, is the king’s private physician, but it’s also one of the queen’s closest friends. His father delivered the lady, just like he delivered her sons, and to anyone else Mark would be too hesitant to speak his mind, too afraid of betrayal, but he trusts his mother and he trusts this man who is close to her.

“It matters to me,” he says, praying it’s the right thing to do, “and it matters to the alliance. If the Prince Consort cannot withstand this pregnancy, if there is even the slightest possibility that it could hurt him, then, even more than in the absence of an heir, the alliance would crumble. The king of the Southern Islands would be furious, the Crown Princess, Donghyuck’s twin, would be furious, and then we would have to defend ourselves from two powerful enemies instead of one, and we’d be alone. And I can’t let it happen, so tell me.”

The doctor stares at him for a long moment, and, surprisingly, he chuckles. “Ah, we have a very famous saying in the mountains, it’s quite appropriate for you, Your Highness. The danger of wanting to raise a young mountain lion is that you’ll just have a mountain lion in the end.”

Mark opens his mouth, puzzled. “I don’t think I follow.”

“Your father has always tried to turn you into a man strong enough to rule his country, a man who doesn’t just follow the flow but makes his own decisions, chases his own dreams, makes his wishes come true, and you’ve always been quite a disappointment in that sense. I think you might be aware, but the king has always found you lacking a little bit of… will.”

Oh, Mark is aware. His father blames the queen for that, and those first years in which she let Mark roam around the park that surrounds the palace, breading flower wreaths and plucking the wires of the harp while she told him countless fairytales. He always thought she had nearly ruined him, and that only the stern military training he had forced Mark to take had saved him for being an Omega.

“But there’s a big problem with willful children. They’re not good at following orders. You’ll make a fine king one day, Your Highness, and I hope your father realizes he’s getting exactly what he’s always asked for before the ridge between the two of you gets too deep.”

Somewhere outside, a trumpet sounds, a horse whinnies. Mark hears Yukhei’s boisterous laughter over the rhythmic pounding of the blacksmith’s hammer on a piece of sturdy iron.

“Time is running out and you have yet to answer my question.”

The doctor squints, suddenly serious again.

“You’ve asked for my medical opinion and I’ve given you the chance not to listen to it, but you’ve asked again and I have sworn to always give it for free and with honesty. I think forcing a child on your husband’s body right now could very much ruin him. His heat is irregular, flickering back and forth. His body is still adapting, changing. If it refuses the change, and it’s very possible in his situation, it could be a disaster. In the remote eventuality it doesn’t kill him, it might traumatize him forever, or make him unable to carry any other children.”

“My father wouldn’t care if he was able to give me just one, would he?” The queen was right, Mark doesn’t really care about what his father wants, but Donghyuck… “And Donghyuck wouldn’t care either. If he asks me for a child, I won’t be able to deny him.”

The doctor nods. “No, you won’t. Not during his heat, you won’t be able to. And even if you were able to stop yourself, it would be a breach of the prince’s trust to take this decision on your own.”

“Then what should I do?”

“You must understand, Your Highness, that the prince of the Islands lives a life of fear in our palace. Since your wedding night he’s been afraid, because he didn’t come here to find love, or happiness, or to live a long life in a cage, he came here to avoid a war. He expected you to do your duty, because he came here to do his own, even at the cost of his own life. But it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t wish something differed for himself now, or that he never will.”

“He will not wish of anything if he dies in childbirth…”

“Did you talk to the Prince Consort about this?” the physician asks, but Mark shakes his head, nervously.

“He wouldn’t listen to me, he doesn’t trust me at all…”

“That’s false, and we both know it. The prince is afraid of you, and of your feelings, because he understands them, and he knows the love of an Alpha, the love of his mate, is not something that can be easily dismissed. Feelings are hardly something without consequences.” The old man clicks his tongue. “You’ve fallen over him like a ravine, Your Highness, and he wasn’t able to stop you in the slightest. Talk to him, he will listen to you and you only.”

No, Mark thinks, no he won’t. He wouldn’t. He…

Someone knocks at the door, and Yukhei’s voice breaks the dusty silence of the archive. Mark wonders for how long exactly the hammering has stopped and if the people on the other side could hear what they were talking about.

“Mark, everything’s ready. We’re only waiting for you to leave.”

“I’m coming, give me a moment…”

Too many stolen moments. Jaeho looks at him, and there’s understanding in his old eyes. There’s a little bit of pity.

“I can make sure he’s still lucid when you arrive. Talk to him, Your Majesty.”

The knocking comes, more insistent, and Mark opens the door.

“I’m here, man.”

Yukhei looks between his prince and the royal physician, makes a half-assed bow and leans down to whisper to Mark’s ear.

“Your parents are already outside and there’s a surprise for you.”

Mark nods, quickly thanks the physician and follows Yukhei outside. The sky is angry, the ghost of rain looming darkly over their head. The pink light of dawn has been blanketed by thick, fat clouds, so dense they seems carved out of stone rather than made of air and water.

Mark sees Jungwoo, finally wearing his knight uniform again, doing his best not to look too intimidated in front of the king and failing, and he sees Hendery, always flawless in the colors of the Vale, the helm in his hands because he hates wearing it while he rides - he’ll soon dunk it in the basket of one of the servants that will follow them on a cart trained by much slower horse compared to the young palfreys that will carry the Crown Prince and his knights. Yukhei walks towards his own dark stallion, swiftly mounts on its back. The crowd of servants, maidens, officers, soldiers and even a couple of curious lords swarm on the back of Mark’s vision like a sea of colorful, faceless people.

A trumpet sounds, and it’s soon followed by another, and then another.

The king comes out of the main gate, followed by his knights, the queen, Sungmin, and… and Donghyuck, wrapped in Mark’s grey wolf pelt, his blond hair looking strikingly fair against the darkness of the fur. He’s pouting, his hands clasped together under the two hems of the pelt, and Mark can already guess the reason. He bites his cheek to keep the smile in as he bows to his father, to his mother, to his brother. He doesn’t bow to Donghyuck, just extends his hand.

Donghyuck looks at him, the hint of a challenge in his eyes, but Mark can finally let his smile widen until he can see the corners of Donghyuck’s mouth shaking as he fights back one of his own.

He shakes his open palm in front of Donghyuck until the boy looks to the side, unclenches his hands - he really remembered to wear gloves this time - and raises them to deposit a golden sea-silk handkerchief in Mark’s hand. It smells like him, even at a distance, and Donghyuck must have worn it against his body for it to carry such a strong, sweet scent.

Mark folds it carefully and slips it in the inner pocket of the jacket he’s wearing, against his heart, like he promised. Then, before Donghyuck can stop him - before Mark can stop himself - he leans over and plants a kiss at the corner of Donghyuck’s mouth. Long enough to be scandalous, but still chaste enough that people will find it sweet rather than inappropriate.

The king glares, the queen hides a smile behind her own gloves hands. People murmur, and murmur, and murmur, but Donghyuck blushes, and his scent blossoms within him, not just sweet, but dark and bottomless, the faintest twinkle of gold lying at the bottom of a dragon’s nest.

_Wait for me, sunshine. I’ll be back for you._

They leave just as thunder shakes the sky.

 

❃

 

It’s raining today, again, light rain, fastidious, petty. It’s been raining for four days already.

It rained the first day, as they headed towards the Northeastern feuds, the horses galloping fast through the empty fields, already plowed, ready to accept the new seeds, protecting them from the cold of the upcoming winter. They followed the jagged coastline Southwards, to Parse and Nihal, finally stopping in Cape Conk, where Jaehyun’s father opened the doors of his castle for him with a powerful handshake and endless questions about his youngest son’s wellbeing. Mark told him what Jaehyun told him, of endless patrols in the mountain, and the way people murmur when they see him ride to town surrounded by his knights. Lord Jung smiles wide, his wife looks down and misses her youngest baby in silence.

It rained the second day too, and the third day, and the fourth day as well.

“It seems like the rain is following you around, and I think it’s because you mope way too much,” Yukhei says, the shadow of a smile on his face, but even his proverbial good mood has started to waver after four days of riding with wet socks and underwear.

“It’s not actually raindrops, they’re the tears of his prince at home,” Hendery jokes, and Yukhei smiles for real this time, wicked and sly.

“Or the tears of our dear prince here, the Prince Consort doesn’t strike me as someone who’d miss this loser.”

Mark mutters threat of a banishment that no one listens to. Jungwoo is the only one who doesn’t hazard a snicker.

They’ve left Alya this morning and after visiting a few minor families on the road they’ve finally entered the biggest feud of the whole kingdom, Saira, where twenty-five years ago the man with the strongest claim to the throne outside the royal family decided to strengthen it even more by seducing and marrying the sister of the king.

It’s a pity, Mark thinks, as they ride on the draw bridge and inside the colossal stonewalls of the fortified city, that Lord Lee of Saira didn’t have a single Alpha male heir that could challenge his claim to the throne at all. An eventual Alpha male, born from the sister of the king and the most powerful lord of the Vale, would have been high enough in ranks to challenge Mark to a duel to death for the throne.

Slanderers in small village say the sister of the king refused to give birth to an Alpha, as for request of the king himself, but Mark knows her aunt and knows nothing would’ve made her happier than stealing her brother’s kingdom. She just never had the chance. Three daughters, all Betas like her and her husband. One son. An Omega.

And it’s Taeyong that comes to greet Mark at the clearing, wrapped in dark green and a grimace that could pass for a smile.

“It’s fucking cold Mark,” he says under his breath, as they exchange the traditional greeting. “And you’re fucking late.”

“You didn’t come to my wedding and you even left me alone at the Harvest celebration banquet, asshole,” Mark whispers, in the same hushed tone, before the Lord and the Lady of Saira appear in his peripheral vision and he’s forced to let go of his favorite cousin and greet his hosts.

It’s the only chance he and Taeyong have to talk alone for the rest of the evening, as Mark spends dinner telling his aunt and her tall, lean husband the last gossip from Dawyd, dodging any uncomfortable questions about his husband and the lack of an heir - questions that have haunted him for the past four days, as every single lord he’s met during the Greeting has already thought of asking them. The feast continues even after supper is over, and before he retires Mark gives his knights permission to drink a little.

“Not too much, Yukhei!”

“When have I ever drunk too much?” Yukhei replies, rolling his eyes up.

The list would be very long, but Mark simply rolls his eyes back and asks Jungwoo to keep an eye on them. “And this time, if something happens, please tell me.”

He can’t keep the sourness out of his voice and Jungwoo looks down, looking guilty. Mark is never this mean, but the way Jungwoo let Donghyuck put the both of them in danger still sits wrong on his tongue, almost like a drop of poison, tainting every word he’s said to Jungwoo in the past four days.

He goes to the room that has been arranged for him after that, opening the door of the balcony and leaning against the balustrade to stare at the imponent silhouette of the Clairs drawing a harsh, jagged line at North. There’s a wooden box on his night drawer, tobacco rolled in heavy paper inside. His father loves to smoke these Western herbs, and Taeyong’s father likes to do that too. He never expected Taeyong to be the type, but he doesn’t comment on it when his cousin slips inside the room quietly and joins him under the stars.

“So, what’s with the long face?” Mark asks.

Taeyong scoffs. “You know, the usual. Trouble at the borders, harvest has not been exceedingly generous this year and there’s talks downtown of this winter being the coldest of the last ten years. It would be worrisome, if they didn’t say that every year…”

“You know that’s not what I was asking, Yongie. Your mother has already told me all of that, and in details.”

“There’s really nothing else, Mark.”

Mark scoffs and takes a cigar of his own. He rolls it between his hands, but doesn’t light it.

“I’m young and inexperienced maybe, but not dumb. Everyone thinks the king is trying to make me take responsibility by allowing me to come in his stead, but other than wanting me to spend this week away from my mate, I’m sure there was another reason he didn’t come do the Greeting personally.”

Taeyong’s scowl deepens. He offers to light Mark’s cigar, but Mark refuses, worried that Donghyuck would somehow still be able to smell it on him. He remembers the distaste on his face whenever he was in a room with the king and that thick smoke heaving around them.

“Want to tell me what’s going on?” Mark tries again, tentatively.

“I received a marriage proposal,” Taeyong says, exhaling a circle of smoke in the cold air. “A very good one. Something my parents couldn’t have hoped for someone like me.”

 _Someone like me_ , a male Omega, a rarity in some special environments - Mark is aware male Omegas are especially sought after by brothels, for they make a fairly good selling price - and a curse in others. Not many families would want a male Omega to marry their heirs, knowing how difficult it is for them to conceive compared to female Omegas or Betas. Mark cannot imagine who would be so foolish to want a male Omega consort in a situation different from the one Mark is sharing with Donghyuck.

“Who?” he asks, eyes wide.

“It doesn’t matter. Your father refused.”

“What? Who even asked his opinion?”

“My parents, of course. When it comes to the Great Lords and their families, no one in this kingdom can marry without the permission of the king, not even a mere male Omega like me.”

“Your father did,” Mark says.

“Yes, and look how well it turned out for me! Because I’m sure this is a way to punish my parents through me… that’s the king of games our king likes to play.”

Mark opens his mouth to deny it, but he can’t. He really can’t. Not after he saw it happening in Dawyd, the subtle, silent way his father has been trying to restrain Donghyuck. Did he do the same to his own sister, when she tried to leave him?

“How did your parents get married then, if the approval of the king is necessary?”

“My father did something very foolish, but he did it after a war, a war that he had just helped to win. And people might think my mother was spoils of war for him, but she was the one who seduced him because she wanted to choose her own destiny.”

Oh, the sister of the king had always been smart, very smart, even according to the old palace waiters who had seen her bloom into a terribly powerful woman. She had probably seen what had happened to the lady of the Clairs, her sister-in-law, who had been ripped from her mountains to marry the king of the Vale, to fill a void that could never be filled in the heart of a man who had won the war but lost the only battle that mattered to him. Mark’s mother has never been a happy wife, nor a powerful one. Mark doesn’t know if the Princess of Alya is a happy wife, but she definitely is a powerful one. And yet, she seems unable to help her only son.

“Did the king really refuse?” Mark asks, but he can read the answer in Taeyong’s eyes. “How can he? Your father has the biggest granary in the whole kingdom. He should have a little leverage...”

“He does, but the king is still the king. And I’m just an Omega.” Taeyong turns towards Mark, eyes big and a little lost. “It should’ve been a formality, you know? It’s been a formality for hundreds of years. You inform the king and he gives his agreement and boom! I would’ve been married before the end of the year, maybe even before you did…”

“But he must have give you an official excuse, or something?”

“Does he need to? With you marrying outside the Vale this marriage would make our family too powerful. It was in his rights to refuse apparently.”

Oh, Mark doesn’t like history, but he has studied it all. He knows that the only way to stop the clans from becoming more powerful than the royal family through arranged marriages is to marry within the clans first. It’s the reason the royal family is so tightly interconnected with the greatest noble families of the kingdom. But this time Mark broke the rules. He should’ve married Yerim, Taeyong's youngest sister, but he didn’t. He married Donghyuck, he married outside the country, and now every other union between two powerful clans would be too dangerous for his fragile Crown Prince position.

“Who is it that wants to marry you? And why?”

Taeyong finishes smoking his cigar and exhales a last circle of smoke. He dumps the remains on a glass vase on the window and turns to look at Mark.

“As for the why, I must say, even though he looked extremely smitten for me the last time we see each other, the proposal surprised me too. I thought he wanted to get in my pants once, not for the rest of our lives. Not that I would have stopped him either way. As for the who, well, you probably know him very well, maybe even better than me. It’s the son of Lord Seo of the Clairs.” Taeyong smirks, bitter. “Your other favorite cousin.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And guess whom Mark is going to meet in the next chapter? Like I said, it might seems like this specific subplot might not be important now, but these characters will be back in the future and they will be important then, so even if I really want to go back to my two fools in love /immediately/ I'm going to spend a little time letting Mark visit Johnny (and his mother's hometown as well) in the next chapter for the last stop of this trip, before he finally comes home <3  
> After that pray for my soul because I've been afraid of writing the heat scene since day one...


	16. xvi. today, i learn what the word without means

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Free promo for [Exhibit No. 6: Crown Prince Minhyung](https://twitter.com/senpaixxx0110/status/1169642651768852480) by @senpaixxx0110, thank you ❤  
> -Now onto more serious things. I'm not going to sugarcoat this, university is treating me very bad right now but if they allow me not to enroll in that one really scary class and do the english class instead I might stress out a little less this semester bc last semester was absolutely terrifying and really bad. Nevertheless, I'm trying my hardest to carve small spaces to write when I can. I don't know how good it is, since I'm stressed and everything, but please be supportive because the beginning of the semester is the worst moment for me ;; I will try to write next chapter asap but there is still NO UPDATE SCHEDULE, it will come out when it's ready.  
> -I'm really sorry for dumping three worldbuilding chapters on you but I really needed to establish these things (also I hope you like the Clairs, bc I love the Clairs and their birds of prey inspired names and their birds of prey inspired gods, pls love them too i love them so much). I also hope this chapters clears (or clairs ahah) up a little of what Mark thinks and wants.  
> -This is unbetaed bc my beta also has uni. Also, again, I'm so sorry for not answering all the comments for chapter 15, I'm trying to answer them slowly in my free time like usual. Please be patient and your reply will come, I promise.  
> -Thank you for everyone who wished me the best for university. Thank you so much. I'm in a very bad place and my old twitter friends know how unhealthy my reaction to stress is. I'm trying to be better because degree or not this is still my life and I don't want to spend it crying and thinking of all the things I need to do, but it's very difficult for me and seeing all these people encouraging me was very nice so, again, thank you.
> 
> \- [chapter title inspiration](https://avolitorial.tumblr.com/post/171398152982/bracketed-from-translation-by-anne-carson)  
> \- the songs for this chapter is Sun&Moon (NCT127), [here](https://twitter.com/aprilclaws/status/1156324062047670272) you can find the playlist.

“I have a letter for you. From my favorite cousin to my favorite cousin.”

In his defence, Johnny’s expression doesn’t falter and his hand doesn’t shake. He keeps pouring the wine in the goblet carefully, and only when he’s done he takes the envelope from Mark’s hands and pockets it without a comment.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Mark asks.

“Aren’t you going to drink your wine?” Johnny asks back, and they make their goblets clink before Mark frowns.

“Taeyong, really?”

Johnny sits down, in the tall chair that was his father’s before, and his grandfather’s before them. The Lord of the Clairs is still out there, among the frozen peaks, leading his men at the border to defend a village from foreign raiders. In his absence, his eldest son can sprawl himself on the throne of his (and Mark’s) ancestors and drink his wine without a single ounce of property. The stare he gives Mark screams of challenge.

“Why not? He’s pretty, he’s noble enough for the future lord of the Clairs, he likes me.”

“You hated him! For years! You wouldn’t stop complaining how prissy and proper and cold he was, how much you hated him.”

One of Johnny’s eyebrows shoots upwards.

“Oh, do tell me. After all, you’re the expert here in marrying someone you spent your whole life hating on.”

“That’s… that’s different. I didn’t exactly have a choice!”

Johnny clicks his tongue, leans back against the seatback and smile. “Spare me the lecture, Mark. Everyone with ears heard you complain about the little minx to the point we all wished we didn’t have ears anymore, and what do I hear from the messenger who came up here last month? That our beloved Crown Prince is apparently too in love with his husband to fuck him silly. That he’s taking his time to… court him.”

Fuck messengers. Fuck people who cannot keep their fucking mouth shut. Fuck everyone.

“That,” Mark says, looking down, “is a lie.”

“Oh, well, thank you for confirming it. I thought you had lost your mind. I mean, I know you’re too much of a prude to fuck anyone - hell, you even refuse to fuck whores - so that part about refusing to have sex I was sure was true, but you? In love with Prince Donghyuck of the Southern Islands? Only someone who’s never met you could believe that.”

Mark chokes on the wine. He coughs. Flails a little until Johnny pats his back so strong he finally sputters some wine back in the goblet. He puts it down with a grimace.

“Wrong lie,” he says, all throaty and scratchy. Johnny stares at him, puzzled, until he repeats it. “That was the wrong lie, we did have sex. The rest is true.”

There’s a moment of silence before Johnny finally takes in his red ears and his eyes widen. “Wait, for real?” he says, and Mark looks down, unable to meet his eyes. He can’t, however, tune out the way Johnny starts laughing. “Are you fucking kidding me, Mark? Prince Donghyuck? Of the Southern Islands? Really?”

Johnny laughs so hard that Yukhei’s head pops through the open door, followed by his body and another bottle of wine, because of course he would never miss the chance.

“Are we laughing at Mark or with Mark?” he asks, and Johnny only howls louder, so loud that every single man in the Clairs must be hearing him. “If it’s because he’s pathetically in love with the prince of the islands, please spare him. He hears that from us about… every three minutes?”

“So you can have fun and I can’t? I don’t think so, munchkin…” Johnny angles himself better towards Mark and smiles. “So, tell me, cousin. How’s this husband of yours?”

Johnny laughs a lot more that night, so much that at a certain point Mark is afraid he’s going to pass out for lack of breath. Mark tells him everything. Of Donghyuck’s golden hair, burnt wheat under a blue sky, of his dark eyes, mischievous or angry or dazed, glossy with pleasure, but always bright. Donghyuck who knows about politics so much better than Mark does, who swirls through the ballroom clad in white and gold and talks with the right people, says the right words, Donghyuck who stares at Mark from the other side of the room, and the heat that used to burn him alive has a shape now, like a brand on Mark’s skin, it was anger and now it’s want, and Mark doesn’t know, he really doesn’t know what he could do if someone tries to separate him from his mate.

“I envy you, cousin,” Johnny says, when the times of laughing is over and a thin veil of wistfulness has plunged over them like snow - the same snow that’s falling outside the window, behind thick glasses, in a world that grows darker and colder. It’s that time of the night, that time of the year, the time of silence. The world is swallowed by winter, snowflake after snowflake, wrapping the Clairs in the white cloak that gave these mountains their name. “This sounds like a love worth singing about.”

“Even if it’s one-sided?”

“Especially because it’s one-sided. Happy loves are nothing special. Broken loves, one-sided loves, impossible loves. That’s what the people want to hear.”

“What about your love? Is it broken, one-sided or impossible?”

Johnny lets out a sad little laugh. “Is it even love? I don’t know. I don’t dare to hope. I have no reason to, at this point.”

And it’s late, and Mark is drunk, and Johnny is more wasted than he is. They’re alone, in the throne room of the castle of the Clairs, the tallest seat in the kingdom, and the loneliest. Outside, the wolves howl.

“I’m sorry, you know. If it was for me, you would be able to marry Taeyong. If it was for me, everyone would be able to marry everyone they want.”

Johnny chuckles and drinks straight from the battle, cleaning his mouth with the back of his hand before he talks.

“Really? Would you let your golden flower marry someone else? After all, you only got him because you were forced into a political marriage. You said it yourself, it is one-sided.”

That’s a very silly argument, and Mark makes sure to tell Johnny exactly that. “If I hadn’t been forced to meet Donghyuck, I wouldn’t have fallen in love with him at all. But it’s too late to go back now, at least for us.”

“It’s never too late. What if he asks you to let him go?”

Well, that would be impossible, isn’t it? An alliance is an alliance, a marriage is a marriage. A mate is a mate, and Mark loves Donghyuck too much to let him go. And yet, he doesn’t know, he really doesn’t know. Deep down he thinks he would - he told Donghyuck he would, but that was days ago. The more time passes, the bolder, the more desperate Mark becomes. Letting Donghyuck leave? Now, he wouldn’t even dare to say it out loud, he can barely think about it, with Donghyuck’s golden handkerchief pressed against his heart.

“It’s too late for us,” he insists. “But you and Taeyong… If I were king, if you really love him as much as you seem to, I would never keep the two of you apart. ”

When there’s no answer, Mark only thinks Johnny fell asleep. He almost falls asleep as well, on the hard wood of the bench, but then Johnny talks again, and it sounds lucid, more firm than Mark would’ve thought anyone could be after all that wine.

“Tread lightly with your words, cousin. A desperate man could take you up on that.”

Mark opens his eyes, and Johnny looks angry, slightly out of focus, but angry. Angrier than Mark has ever seen him look.

“Johnny,” Mark says, but his cousin interrupts him.

“We’re loyal people, here in the Clairs. But many years ago we lost our lady to a man who doesn’t love her, doesn’t even respect her. A man who took her from us as a way to secure the borders. And secure the borders, _your_ borders, we did. And yet the king fears us, instead of trusting us.”

“I trust you,” Mark says, fast, too fast.

“Aye, Mark, I know that. You’re one of us, after all, and that’s why you should tread lightly with your words. The news about your marriage aren’t the only ones that reached the mountains. The trees are murmuring that the king is jealous of you, afraid of the Prince Consort, that he sees dangers at every corner. If the wrong person heard your words, if someone were to tell to your father… it almost sounded like you were saying you could be a better king than him. And that, that would be…”

That would be high treason. Again. It seems to Mark that lately the suspicion of treason follows him like a hound waiting only to sink its fangs in his flesh. He breathes, trying to regain his lucidity. The room suddenly feels bigger, too big, and too dark, and every plot of shadow could hide a spy. Mark scans his surroundings, almost expecting a guard to come out from behind the curtains, pointing a sword at him.

“Relax, Mark. You’re with friends here. But because we’re friends, because you trust me and because I trust you, you really need to be careful about what you say. Especially while you’re here. The last thing we need now is the king thinking you’re conspiring with us against him.”

“We were on the verge of a war only a few months ago,” Mark says, shaking his head, “we shouldn’t be worrying about this. Inner fights, petty jealousy… The enemy is someone else…”

“The Empire you mean?” Johnny shakes his head. “No, I don’t think so. That old man in his high city is too old to wage war on us. Something else is moving at the borders. Something we haven’t seen for a long, long time. You talked with the young imperial prince, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but… what he said didn’t really make sense…”

“Talk to father about that when he comes back tomorrow. For now, let’s go to sleep. I think we had too much wine. We shouldn’t be awake, let alone talking.”

They both get up, legs wobbling, head spinning. In the other room, Jungwoo is snoring on the floor, sprawled on Hendery’s stomach. Yukhei and a soldier of the Clairs are sleeping head down on the table, their goblets empty, just like the bottle between them.

“Look at these losers,” Johnny chuckles, walking around the asleep lump of Hansol, his second-in-command.

Mark watches his cousin trip against a stool and thinks that Johnny has no right to complain for he’s as much as a loser as his men are. They drag each other upstairs, where Johnny’s nanny gives both of them an exasperated, fond look, and points them towards their room.

Like every time he visited the Clairs, Mark has been given his mother’s old room. It’s still exactly like it was the last time he was here, the last time _she_ was here.

The last lady of the Clairs hasn’t been home in a long, long time. The king never let her leave Dawyd since they got married, but her parents left the room untouched, for the day of her return. Her books, her dolls, her rouge on the beauty stand, her old clothes inside the closet.

It still smells like her, after all this time. Safe and warm and familiar. It’s the last thing Mark registers before he falls asleep, his head heavy, his heart heavier.

 

❃

 

A long time ago, the time of giants, of dragons, of faeries, the broken past, the lost past - but before it was broken and lost, before it was past, before a young star was tricked by her parents and fell down from the sky on a magical sprinkle of islands made of gold and people made her a goddess - the First Gods roamed the land of men. They were tired, old beings of power, who had flown across the world for eons, their large wings shaking in the darkness, until they finally found a place, where the sky and the land were connected, through which they could finally come back to their ancestral home. People in the Clairs call the top of their mountains God’s Seats, because the legends say that there, in the highest chairs of the world, the old gods would perch and stare at the land they had shaped whenever they came to visit. War went to the Clairs as many men tried to conquer the mountains and find a way to reach the land of the gods, and the once white peaks were stained red. When the gods saw it, they were furious with the invaders. They annihilated their armies and declared that doom would fall upon anyone who tried to bring war on the Clairs again. Then, they disappeared, and the door to the sky that had always been open, was closed forever. And yet people still say that, somewhere up in the middle of the blizzard, the top of the tallest mountains still hide a secret stairway to the sky, a beautiful entrance to the world of the gods.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Mark stops the horse, soothing it with low words and a tender caress on its neck, and looks at the rising sun. It’s his last day in the Clairs and the Lord of Gyr has taken him up to the top of the Peregrine mountain, challenging the piercing wind and the perilous ice-covered paths and the snow that hides deep crevices, like wounds on the side of the mountains - right where the gods were said to have thrust their talons when they took flight to leave land for the last time.

It is beautiful, the whole words seems to glitter as the snow and the ice refract the light of the sun, unfiltered, so white Mark has to shield his eyes lest they start tearing under this tremendously sharp candor.

“Not many people have the privilege to reach one of the God’s Seats,” Mark’s uncle says, while reigning in his imponent horse, made nervous by the height, the rarefied air and the snow piled up so heavily around them it feels like a silent presence with a mind of its own. “My sister loved coming here. In the letter you gave me from her, she made me promise I would take you here. My wedding gift for you.”

Mark smiles. In his pocket, right against his heart, he can feel the soft weight of Donghyuck’s handkerchief. “It’s amazing, but I’m afraid it won’t count as a wedding gift if I’m the only one who can enjoy it. You will have to take me here again when I come to visit with my husband.”

The Lord of Gyr, and of all the Clairs, laughs sadly.

“I would love to,” he says, even if they both know a Royal Consort is not allowed to leave Dawyd once married. Ever. Mark’s mother was never allowed to come home and Donghyuck will never be able to visit either. “I’ve heard he is a real beauty.”

Mark curses Johnny for betraying him like this, but smiles nevertheless.

“He is. The most beautiful.”

“Is it true that people in the islands have golden skin?”

Mark shields his eyes from the sun, and from a memory of Donghyuck’s naked back arching against the light of dawn. “It is true. Golden skin, golden hair, a son of the Goddess of the Sun. He would love this. He would love this so much.”

“Who wouldn’t?” the man answers, turning his horse back. “Come on, there are other things I need to show you.”

Mark takes a last look at the moonlike landscape extending its pale, blinding light as far as he can see, the immensity of it lighting him up from within like he’s made of glass, a prism made only to be pierced by white so it can split it into every color of the world. He doesn’t realize he’s talking out loud until he’s already said it.

“One day,” he murmurs, “I’ll be king. King of the Vale, and king of the Clairs too. And I’ll come back here with them both. Donghyuck… and mom. I’ll bring them home.”

Here, on God’s Seat, there’s only snow and sky, and silence, and two sons of the Clairs. Anywhere else, Mark wouldn’t have said anything. Anywhere else, even if Mark has said what he said, the Lord of Gyr would’ve replied, _May that time come as late as possible_ , because he’s a loyal subject of the king. But on God’s Seat there’s no space for polite lies.

The horse whinnies. The Lord’s voice is firm. “May that time come as soon as possible, Your Highness. Your father worries me lately.”

“My father worries me too,” Mark replies, and there’s nothing else he needs to add.

They ride down on the other side of the mountain, through the ruins of the fortress that once dominated this valley. Many years have passed since the gods last roamed the land, and, despite their curse, long after they disappeared war did come to the Clairs again. And again. And again. Of the once countless independent fortified cities that had dotted the mountains in the ancient times, when Mark’s mother was young only four had remained, no more independent but placed under the fragile protection of the Vale. Kite, Peregrine, Gyr and Condor’s Peak. Then the Empire attacked, destroying Peregrine and Kite on the same day. Condor’s Peak was taken days before the marriage between the daughter of the lord and the king of the Vale. Left alone, Gyr had no other choice than to ask for the help of the Vale. In exchange, they had to send their only lady to Dawyd, making up for the lost alliance to Condor’s Peak.

“We should’ve never let her go. The Clairs are too jealous of their children to send them so far away.”

If Gyr had refused to send their lady away, if they had allied themselves with the Empire instead, like Condor’s Peak had done, to avoid annihilation, Mark’s parents would have never gotten married, and Mark wouldn’t be here now.

Mark wonders if Donghyuck’s sister is having the same thoughts, in her golden islands. If she misses her twin brother, if her brothers, her parents, her suddits too are missing their golden prince. He wonders if he’ll ever be able to bring both of them home, both his mother and Donghyuck.

“There, look at that!” Mark follows the hand of his uncle towards the lines of dark smoke coming behind the woods. “That’s what I wanted to show you before you leave!”

“What’s that?”

“One entire village, wiped away. My men arrived just in time to engage battles with the raiders and managed to drive them away, but there was nothing to do for the houses. They all burnt down to the ground.”

“Was everyone safe?” Mark asks, trotting behind his uncle towards the barren skeletons of what were once small wood houses. The stone ovens inside still remains, but the entire structure has burnt away, leaving behind only the thickest beams.

“We had some casualties, yes, and many were injured. But that’s not the main point.”

“It should be the main point-”

“Listen to me, Your Highness, because I’ve already written many letters to your father and not once he has replied to me, other than to tell me that my son is not allowed to court the son of the Lord of Saira because that would be too big of a threat to his lineage. You’re going to be gone by tonight, but this is not the first village who burns. There are people, skirting around our borders.”

“Imperials?”

“Something different. Something we haven’t seen in many generations. White-skinned riders from the West.”

“That’s what Prince Jaemin said.”

“So they saw them at Condor’s Peak too…”

“But that’s… that should be impossible.”

“And yet I saw them with my own eyes. These are scouts, not warriors. But you know better than me that where scouts go, warriors are not far behind. So I beg you, Mark of the Vale of the Giants, my nephew, my prince. Whatever it is that your father is afraid of, our people, your people, his people too, are dying. Winter has already come to the mountains, earlier than ever, and it will be long and dark and peaceful, but when spring comes and the first thaw will free the passes, those riders will come back. And we need your help because if the Clairs fall, no one will be able to defend the pass, and the whole Vale will crumble with us.”

 

❃

 

They leave at dawn, on fresh horses and wearing way heavier clothes than when they arrived, courtesy of the lord of the castle. “For the upcoming winter,” the lord of Gyr says, as he bids them farewell. “It will come soon. May you be prepared.”

Johnny joins them at the last moment, appearing in the courtyard of the fortress holding the heirs of his horse. He’s already tall, but the thick bear pelt he’s wearing makes him look bulkier than he really is. His long hair is tied up and he rides the biggest, darkest horse Mark has ever seen, and with the heavy broadsword at his side he almost looks like a giant of the legends, ready to fight for the once wild valley.

“Let me come with you, so I can keep part of my oath,” Johnny says to Mark, referring to the fact that he was originally ordained as part of the Crown Prince’s knights, though his duties as the eldest son of the lord of Gyr keep him tied to the Clairs.

“You know you don’t really need to, right? We can go down the mountain on our own,” Mark replies, but Johnny shakes his head.

“I can’t take you to Dawyd, cousin, but I can ride with you to at least to the Gate.” he says, referring to the couple of colossal monoliths that mark the entrance of the Val that were said to be placed at the base of the mountains by the giants themselves.

“Then you better keep up, we have a lot of miles to cover.”

“Oh, someone is in a hurry,” Yukhei says, with a whistle, making Jungwoo smile.

“Do you think he can smell his mate’s heat from here?” Hendery piles on, and Johnny throws his head back and laughs at their antics.

“I will miss you rascals when you’re gone,” he says, to Mark. “Come on, Your Highness, let’s get you home.”

They work their way back towards the valley, trotting slowly and carefully on the paths dug by the mountainmen around the glaciers, until water starts sprinkling from the ice, becoming a river - the biggest river of the Vale. Then, a few hours later, when the sun is already high in the sky and the white of the snow has given way to the green of the underbrush, they finally come out of the woods, reaching the two tall stones placed on either side of the river, taller than the tallest tree, like primitive obelisks. The Gate has guarded the valley for centuries, when the first inhabitants of the world lived in the darkness, when they turned to stone as the sun rose for the first time, when humans arrived from the Who-Knows-Where and fought to conquer this land forged by the giants. The Gate has witnessed it all, and yet still has so much left to witness.

There, at the base of the mountain, and at the border between the Clairs and the feud of Saira, a man on a brown horse is waiting for them. The rider’s fair hair is unmistakable even from that far away, the silvery strands shining under the pale autumn sun. Mark turns to Johnny, who’s looking rather sheepish even though he’s trying to act smug.

“Oh, I can’t believe you,” Mark says. “I want to keep part of my oath my royal ass.”

“I did my duty,” Johnny replies with a wolfish grin. “Now fuck off, we only have a couple of hours before someone comes looking for either him or me. And I want to make the best of it.”

“Eww, gross,” Hendery replies, and Johnny snorts.

“I stepped in a pool of your own drunken vomit just the day before yesterday, and that was, if you allow me, a lot more disgusting.”

They all laugh as they watch Taeyong ride towards them. Mark can see Johnny try to comb the fur on his shoulders and check his hair with nervous fingers.

“How do I look?” he asks, under his voice.

“Dumb,” Mark replies in the same tone.

“”Fuck, I really am. I would wage war for that boy.“

Oh, Mark definitely echoes this feeling.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get out of your hair right now. I have my own boy to come back to.”

_My own boy to wage war for._

Before he can go, Johnny stops him. “Wait,” he says, giving him the big envelope he carried on his back for the whole ride. “For your darling with hair like molten gold.”

Mark can feel the shape of a bow inside the leather wrappings, and his eyes widen.

“You can’t… Johnny, I can’t give this to Donghyuck. He’s not even allowed to touch a weapon.”

Johnny shrugs, not looking guilty at all.

“Bullshit. You’ve spent at least forty minutes describing his shooting form two nights ago, and I understand that you were drunk and you are a lovesick fool, but that is some dedication.”

“Yes, but I can’t just…”

“You’re the fucking Crown Prince of this nation, Mark. Stop acting like you’re just a pawn. You’re loved, both by the people and by the whole army, you have the whole, unadulterated support of the Clairs, arguably one of the most important domains of this kingdom, you have married the extremely beloved former Crown Prince of one of the most powerful and wealthy countries of this side of the continent. You can, Mark. You fucking can.”

Mark opens his mouth. He closes it. Johnny sighs and looks behind him, impatient.

“Just take your boy somewhere far away, in the woods or wherever, give him the bow and the quiver, sit down and try to keep your hard on under control as he shows you how to shoot.”

“I hate you,” Mark mutters, as his face colors.

“Oh, I love you too cousin. They say winter this year will come earlier than ever, so bundle up and be prepared to spend all those cold dark nights in bed.” Johnny winks. “See you again in spring.”

Mark watches him ride towards Taeyong, who’s politely waiting at the entrance of a naked field, next to a gaunt, lanky scarecrow. He turns to greet Mark from afar, and Mark waves back. Then, he turns towards his knights.

“Time to go home.”

 

❃

 

Mark feels it as soon as the merlons and petraries of the stonewalls of Dawyd appear in the distance, dominating the valley from the hill, white turned into a black silhouette against the dying sun. It’s not just a _pull_. More like a fall, like the center of gravity itself has shifted and Mark can only precipitate towards the castle in the same way an apple leaves its branch and crashes against the ground when it’s ready. (And Mark, oh, Mark is ready.)

He can feel Donghyuck - he never stopped feeling him, he realizes, but when in the past he had felt his presence, in the last week he’s learnt to feel his absence, like a hole in his chest that only grew wider and deeper with every passing day until it was a chasm, a breach in the fabric of reality, bleeding distance between them like black blood, a void so dense and desperate it becomes solid, a craving turned matter, heavy and angry. And maybe it makes sense that Mark is falling into it because this longing, so strong it became its own center of gravity, this longing, dark and silent and hollow, this longing is a dying star, imploding before it explodes, it’s the water retiring before a colossal tide wave hits the coast, it’s the entire world holding its breath before the storm.

Or maybe it’s just Mark, holding his breath as he rides through the city, _hold it, hold it,_ because the entire world just smells like Donghyuck and distress and fear, and it tastes like blood in your mouth when you accidentally bite your tongue, and if Mark breathes it in it will go straight to his brain and he won’t be able to think.

Donghyuck is in the inner garden, sitting on the swing Sungmin’s daughters love to play on. Jaehyun is keeping guard at the door leading outside and Jeno is sitting on the swing next to Donghyuck’s, holding his hand, murmuring something at his ear. He lets Donghyuck go, as if his hand had burned him, when Mark appears. He lets Donghyuck go and gets up and bows and he’s probably going to apologize, but Mark has no time for this.

“Leave,” he says, and something in his voice must be scary because Jeno literally scampers away.

“You too,” Mark says, looking at Jaehyun. “Leave.”

“It’s not safe, I should take you two to your apartments before he…”

“Jaehyun, if you don’t leave now I’ll kill you,” Mark says, and he sees Jaehyun breathe slowly. Their eyes meet and Jaehyun takes a step back. Mark closes his eyes before he turns, even if Donghyuck’s presence next to him is so strong that he can still see him with his eyes closed. He can hear him and smell him and he can feel his heartbeat, like the entirety of Mark’s world has shrunk to fit the limits of Donghyuck’s body and nothing else is there but him.

“That was scary, Your Highness,” Donghyuck says, and he tries to say it like a joke but his breath is too laboured, his heartbeat too loud. He falters and almost falls, holding himself up against the rope of the swing. He’s barefoot, Mark realizes, barefoot against the last grass of the season, and he’s wearing silk and cotton, and he’s burning up. Mark can feel his warmth without touching him.

“I don’t want anyone else around you.”

Donghyuck smiles tiredly.

“Then you should’ve just stayed yourself.”

Mark knows, he knows why an Omega can’t be left alone, especially before his heat, and he knows Donghyuck couldn’t possibly stay alone with Jaehyun either and that’s why Jeno was also with him. He knows and he still hates them both a little.

“But I came back, didn’t I? And I thought of you the whole time.”

Donghyuck tries to smile, again, but it comes out more like a sob. Mark’s hands are hurting from the need to hold him, but he can’t, not yet. The moment he touches Donghyuck, it’s over, he won’t be able to control himself. There’s only a tiny thread of rationality separating them, and Mark is the one holding it.

“Are you scared?” he asks.

Donghyuck nods.

“If you let me, I will take care of you.”

“If I let you?” Donghyuck asks, his voice like bitter honey. “Is there any way I can stop you? Is there any way I can even survive if you don’t…”

His voice breaks and he flushes, in heat or in shame or maybe in anger, and Mark can smell the siren’s song in his blood, a desperate call.

“It doesn’t matter, Mark. In a few hours I will be begging you to fuck me - heavens, you don’t know how much it’s taking for me not to lie down and spread my legs for you right now - and I won’t even remember it afterwards. I could say anything to you right now and if you decide to ignore what I said and do whatever the fuck you want to do with me, I wouldn’t even be aware of it.”

“And that’s why I’m asking. I want you to know you can… you can let go. I’ll be here to catch you. I won’t let you fall, Donghyuck.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Mark.”

Donghyuck’s fist tightens around the rope. He closes his eyes. The air is cold and crispy, but he doesn't shiver from the cold. He shivers from the heat.

“The king summoned me while you weren’t here,” he says, in a tiny voice, and Mark feels rage break against his ribcage in a violent wave. “He said we need an heir. For the alliance. He said I need to…”

His throat constricts around the end of the sentence and Mark steps closer, still not enough to touch Donghyuck but right enough that his next words are only for him to hear.

“To be quite honest, sunshine, I don’t give a fuck about what my father want. What do _you_ want, Donghyuck? If you want a baby I’ll give you one, two, how many you want. I promise, if that’s what you really want, I’ll do it.”

 _Because I can’t say no to you,_ Mark thinks. He doesn’t say it, because Donghyuck already knows. Mark wears his heart on his sleeve, so that it’s easier to hit it - and Donghyuck is an incredibly good archer, he could hit it blindfolded.

“And what about what _you_ want, Mark?” Donghyuck shoots back.

Oh, this one is easy.

“You,” Mark says, revelling in the way this single word pleases Donghyuck, makes him shiver in his bones. “I want you all for myself. No crowns, no palaces, no wars. No duties. But that’s impossible, isn’t it?”

“I’m afraid it is, Your Highness.”

Without crowns and palaces and wars, without duties, Donghyuck would never stay, but it doesn’t matter because now he’s here and he’s Mark’s.

“If I can’t have you like that, I will have you like this, Donghyuck. It’s fine for me, as long as I have you in the end. But for now, just for a little while, I would like to have you and you only. No one else. I don’t think I’m ready to be a parent and I know you’re scared too.”

Donghyuck looks down and sighs, and Mark hopes at least part of it is relief.

“Your father will get angry. He said… he said we will be punished.”

“My father cannot touch you, Donghyuck. I won’t let him, I promise.”

The wind howls and Donghyuck’s legs give out under him as another wave of heat breaks against his skin from within. The hand that Mark had extended towards him quickly wraps around his shoulder to keep him from falling, the touch burning without breaking the skin. Donghyuck looks at him, tilting Mark’s face towards his own with embers on his fingers, and the scalding hot feeling spreads from the skin he’s touching like the blaze of a mountain fire in summer. Unstoppable.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Mark,” Donghyuck exhales. He closes his eyes, almost as if everything suddenly became too bright for him, almost as if he can see that fire he’s igniting, that fire Mark can only feel - that fire is now the only thing Mark can feel.

Mark keeps his eyes wide open instead, because he needs to see him. He’s fallen so deep, for so long, that now he needs to see Donghyuck fall too. No matter how deep, Mark will be down there to catch him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote most of the conversation in the last part of this chapter when I was writing chapter 9 I think? Maybe even earlier... There never seemed a good time to let them talk about what they want now that they've started to be more honest with each other, and I finally did it and I'm so glad I did. I can't believe we got to this point, next chapter is THE chapter in which many things happen ;; (unless I fuck up and I manage to write a 5k long heat scene ig? which is possible)  
> See you with next chapter ❤
> 
> (Also uhm this should go unsaid but remember that I'm a flower so water me with love and keep me in the sun and sing me nice things and I'll thrive and also really love you).


	17. xvii. i unwind my fingers from the sun, bring his golden light to my mouth. warmth spills out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very quick notes.  
> -When you comment, please be kind, be respectful, be sensitive. I'm drowning in work to do, and there's no one missing this fic more than me. If you think you're suffering because you can't have a new chapter soon, please, just, for a moment, put yourself in the shoes of someone who's sleeping three hours every night in order not to fall behind with the assignments, and despite that I've been wanting to write so much I slept even less in order to produce this chapter during my only free weekend of the past month. And if you're aware of this, please, again, be kind, respectful and sensitive. Most of you are. Almost everyone of you is, because you're wonderful readers. Sometimes someone is not, and I know it's not out of malice, I know most people don't even realize, and I don't blame you for that, but please be careful when you're asking for a new chapter or complaining that it's been too long.  
> -This chapter contains a very sensitive and delicate theme. I've approached the topic of ABO knowing that some of its aspects, like heatsex, can be interpreted as dubcon. In this chapter, I gave my personal interpretation of this, and I hope I managed to treat it with enough sensibility that no one is offended. It was difficult, but I did my best. (With this, I don't mean to say that all heatsex in this fic will always be like the one in this chapter, but they both needed to get through this obstacle in order to progress to a healthier relationship.)  
> -This chapter is also unbetaed and I wrote and edited it in three days, so there might be (and there most certainly will be) some mistakes. If you find any just tell me and I'll edit.  
> -Despite postponing the chapter for answering the comments, I've only been able to reply comments for chapter 15 and half of the comments for chapter 16, which were really so many. Thank you, to all of you. For sticking with me through these hard times, for being amazing readers and amazing people who wishes me the best. I hope you can all enjoy the chapter and feel free to clown me for failing to follow the plot schedule (again).
> 
> \- [chapter title inspiration](https://avolitorial.tumblr.com/post/171398152982/bracketed-from-translation-by-anne-carson)  
> \- the songs for this chapter are Breathe Me by Sia and Wild Roses by Of Monsters and Men, [here](https://twitter.com/aprilclaws/status/1156324062047670272) you can find the playlist.

They don’t touch as they climb the stairs, but Mark can feel Donghyuck’s body like an extension of his own, like something that is still part of him, just kind of weirdly disconnected, separated by physical space but waiting only to come back in his arms.

One of the maids is waiting in front of their apartments. She gasps a greeting, steps forward to take Mark’s coat or ask if he needs anything, a bath drawn for him, or food, or any of the things maids usually ask the Crown Prince, but Donghyuck simply tells her to leave, please, and thank you. His words are spoken out loud but they sound quiet at the same time. He’s walking ahead of Mark and it’s impossible to see what face he is showing that makes the maid look down and not raise her eyes again until the door clicked closed behind her.

Donghyuck heads towards the bedroom, holds the door open for Mark, locks it after he steps in.

The air inside the room is stuffy with frustration and some kind of deep, acute longing. Donghyuck’s scent pervades the curtains, the carpet, the upholstery, every piece of furniture, so thick Mark almost chokes on it. On the bed, the sheets are crumpled, unmade, in a way they never are, they have never been, they never could be in the past, not in a royal chamber. Donghyuck must have forbidden the maids from entering the room, Mark realizes, as he takes in the piles of furs spread on the bed again, Donghyuck’s pale excuse of nesting.

It doesn’t matter if it’s proper or not, Mark presses Donghyuck in the middle of it - his nest, their nest, the place where they’ll spend his heat - pinning him on the bed with a hand on his hip and a kiss on his throat. Donghyuck lets himself be spread, unfolded. He lies boneless on sheets that smell like him and still faintly like Mark, like that last night they spent together here before he left.

They stare at each other, and between them passes, fleeting and cold, a moment of hesitation, of awkwardness, the bond stuttering between them, as if suddenly tied in a knot. Then Donghyuck pants in frustration and reaches out, pulling Mark’s hand flat on his stomach, like an invitation, like he’s pulling on the garbled mess of their feelings, making everything come loose with sheer force rather than patience.

Mark can feel Donghyuck’s bones under his palm, under the precious velvet, embroidered in golden thread, tufted with pearls and diamonds, under the molten silk that is Donghyuck’s skin. Under all of that, Donghyuck’s hipbone cuts through the flesh, sharp, even sharper as Donghyuck sucks in a shaky breath, his stomach collapsing on itself when Mark tugs on his shirt, freeing it from the hold of the belt and the hem of his pants, to sneak a hand underneath and lay it directly on his ribs.

“You lost weight,” Mark murmurs, and his other hand comes to cup Donghyuck’s face. That, too, is sharper than before, with dark shadows sinking under his eyes.“ And sleep. Over me? Did you miss me so much?”

Donghyuck lets out a small, angry, offended sound, and even that seems like too much effort. He’s sweating, feverish. He already looks tired, and Mark would want nothing more than to put him to sleep, but right now he really cannot. Donghyuck looks like he might cry or hit him if he even dares to suggest it. He paws at Mark’s shirt, squirming on the bed, and Mark is too hungry and Donghyuck smells too good. He lays another kiss, a salty kiss, lower than Donghyuck’s throat, right where the silk of the shirt hides his husband’s collarbones.

“Mark,” Donghyuck says, and it sounds like a plead. They haven’t even started and he’s already begging, and Donghyuck doesn’t beg, Donghyuck never begs. When they fuck, Donghyuck bites his lips to keep his cry down, swallows them with his frustration, unwilling to show any weakness until he gets his way. Even when they fight, Donghyuck always makes sure it's either a truce or Mark is the one begging for his life. And yet, here he is, now, begging.

“Sssh, I’m here. What is it?”

“Don’t let them see me.”

Mark blinks, unable for a moment to understand. There’s perspiration shining on Donghyuck’s brow, on his cupid’s bow, trickling down his neck to dampen the collar of his shirt. Off, everything needs to come off.

“Who?”

He makes the mistake to pull back and he gets a full view of Donghyuck is writhing on wrinkled sheets, trying to stop himself from arching his back and rutting up against Mark, trying to calm down enough to talk. When he does, his voice is small.

“Everyone. Don’t let them see me like this, please. Last time, for my first heat… It was shameful. I didn’t even know where I was, I could just cry like… like an animal. I don’t want anybody to see me like this, please.”

For a moment, Mark thinks it’s only Donghyuck who is shaking, then he realizes it’s him as well. His hands are shaking where they touch Donghyuck’s skin, quaking from the effort to be gentle when all he wants is to sink his claws and fangs in this boy.

“It’s alright, I’ll talk to the maids. No one will enter that door, I promise. There’s anything else you want me to do, Donghyuck?”

“Come here,” Donghyuck answers, and his eyes are glassy and dark, like marbles, and the black has eaten at the brown, the heat licking at his sanity. “It hurts.”

His hands come up to cover the one Mark has curled over his hipbone. His fingers are damp, sticky with sweat. They tug at the back of Mark’s hand, dragging it towards his crotch, to the place where his cock is trapped under the pants. He moans when Mark presses the heel of his palm there for a moment. Donghyuck, who’s always silent and composed, who accepts the pleasure like it’s pain, with eyes squeezed shut and bitten lips, he throws his head back and moans, and it’s lewd and shameless and open-mouthed, unabashed, and Mark feels blood boil in his veins, feels it fizzle under the skin and rush in every direction, unsure of where to go, what to do. He crawls over Donghyuck and kisses him on the lips, wet and graceless, almost thirsty. He drinks the sounds Donghyuck makes from the source, sucks them from Donghyuck’s tongue like candies, bites his lips to keep them shut. He knows Donghyuck - the real Donghyuck, not this feverish, needy creature who circles Mark’s waist with his legs to drag him closer, digging on his back with his heels to keep him from pulling away - would hate to sound like that. He wonders if there’s any lucidity left in Donghyuck to feel any shame at this point.

He hears and feels rustling, and before he can reconnect the sound with an action, Donghyuck’s hands are at his belt, and the click when it falls open feels like the loudest sound Mark has ever heard in his life.

It’s never been like this, not with the courtesan he fucked during his rut, nor with the lanky, pale water boy who asked one of the soldiers stationed at the border to help him with his heat during a moonless night and never got to know he had the honor to be fucked by the prince of his country.

What an honor, thinks Mark, and he’s not thinking of the water boy from the border at all. He’s thinking of Donghyuck, Donghyuck, _Donghyuck_ , spread on the mattress, unraveled, blonde hair surrounding his face like a halo, chest heaving up and down under the shirt. Mark puts a hand where his heart should be, this boy’s heart, _mine_. The fabric is smooth and rich under his palm, and through it he can feel the warmth radiating from Donghyuck’s chest. Mark crumples the silk with his fingers and pulls, _pulls_ , until all the buttons jumps and the silk gives up under his hold.

Donghyuck moans again, and it’s like light is spilling from his mouth in the room, painting the air gold and rainbow. Can a sound radiate light and fracture it into colors? Can a scent pierce through skin and make someone bleed sanity, bleed want, bleed need like blood? Can a mere body, a boy’s body, made of flesh and blood and bones and skin, and heart and liver and lungs and Donghyuck’s bright, beautiful brain, a human body, can it also be made of bliss and madness and fury and love, like the demons of past times who were made of emotions and sheer will?

Donghyuck’s hand closes on Mark’s cock and Mark pulls it away before it’s too late. When he comes, he needs to come inside this boy. He mouthes at Donghyuck’s wrist, too harsh for a kiss, too tender for a bite, before pressing it on the bed, at the side of Donghyuck’s face.

“Let’s get these clothes off, shall we?” he asks, and Donghyuck nods, not breaking eye contact.

Mark shimmies out of his pants, watches Donghyuck kick his own away. The air is cold but Mark’s skin is burning as much as Donghyuck’s, if not more. When did he lose his shirt? Was it his own doing? Donghyuck’s? Does it even matter?

With the girl who had helped him with his rut, with the boy Mark had helped with his heat, it had been an obligation, a necessity, a duty. And for a moment, Mark’s own voice resounds in his ears, clear as if it had just been let out, as if the walls had trapped it in their cracks to let it out now, right now, so that Mark could hear it again.

(“But I don’t want duty. The day I get to fuck you, it won’t be for duty.”)

With Donghyuck, it’s not for duty. It can’t ever be for duty. It’s because Mark wants him, with an intensity that leaves both of them breathless. Mark wants and wants and wants, and Donghyuck always pulls back, ever the level-headed one, ever the rational one.

“Please,” Donghyuck begs, pulling himself up so he can drape himself all over Mark. “Please,” he repeats, and Mark feels the urge to kiss him again just to shut him up, because this is not how they’re going to make it work, this time Mark is supposed to be the level-headed one, the rational one, and yet a single cry from Donghyuck is enough to make him come undone.

He pushes Donghyuck down on the bed again, a hand on his sternum, one between his legs. He feels the slick on the head of his cock when he pushes inside, no preparation, no foreplay - as if Donghyuck would need it anyway. Donghyuck sighs when he finally pushes in.

It’s dirty and improper, because Mark has traveled the whole day, he needs a bath, he needs food, and yet he needed this before anything else, and Donghyuck needs it even more than him. So it’s dirty, and rough, and messy, erratic since the beginning because Mark can feel Donghyuck’s pain melting into his own pleasure through the bond, because Donghyuck is clinging to him too tightly, shivering too violently, and his body is too wound up around Mark for them to move against each other properly. These are just the first tendrils, the earliest coils of a heat that has been waiting inside Donghyuck, building up, like the last embers of a fire hidden underground, gnawing on coal to survive and only letting out smoke through the tender earth. The moment it comes to the surface, it will be big enough to devour the entire valley. And Mark is kindling it, forceful push after forceful push, feeling Donghyuck’s flesh give up, surrender to him only to curl around him even tighter a moment later.

Donghyuck’s hands are on his mouth now, and Mark wants to pull them away, but there’s no rush to do it now. He will hear everything, later tonight, or tomorrow, as soon as the heat spikes. For now, the only rush is to come, to make Donghyuck come, to ground them both.

Mark ruts down, graceless, more rubbing inside Donghyuck than thrusting at this point, and Donghyuck whimpers Mark’s name and arches his back to take him deeper - _good boy, my boy_ \- and squeezes his eyes shut. Mark looks down, and it’s like… it’s like riding a horse through the woods, under the shade of the tree, shielded, in the darkness, and in that single heartbeat, for a single moment, you’re in the right place for the sun to shine through the branches and blind you. Donghyuck comes untouched, clamping down on Mark’s cock, and the mere vision of him rips Mark’s orgasm out of him as well, quick and so intense it’s almost painful, like lightning whipping at his spine, like fire burning its way through the ground and up into surface, like sunshine trickling through the woods on a cold autumn day and turning your entire world white.

 

❃

 

Mark doesn’t bother to dry himself up when he comes out of the bathroom. He drips water all over the floor on his way to the bed, where Donghyuck is lying on the bed with his eyes open, staring at the ceiling.

“Do you feel any better?” he asks, and Donghyuck nods weakly.

“Then you should bathe too. You will not be able to leave the bed for long after it really starts.”

Donghyuck nods, again, still not looking at Mark.

“I’m going to get us some food.”

Jaehyun is standing outside the doors of their apartments, his face unreadable. He greets Mark, Mark doesn’t greet back. He turns towards the maid standing next to Jaehyun instead, who’s carefully holding a trail. She’s not one of the women who serve Mark and Donghyuck, but her face is not unfamiliar either. Her name is Yeojin and she’s been the head of the queen’s staff for the past fifteen years.

She bows to Mark.“Your mother the queen said to make sure you let your prince eat, Your Highness. And that she wishes you the best of luck.” Mark glimpses at the trail to find bread, and fruit, and a sweet tart, his mother’s favorite, and smiles. There’s also water and, on the side, a small dark flask.

“You can leave it in the living room, please.”

He holds the door open for her until she leaves with a rustle of silk gowns. Only then Jaehyun dares to talk to him.

“Listen, there’s something we should probably talk about…”

Mark doesn’t let him finish.

“I want you to stay here and keep everyone outside our rooms until it’s over. Tell that to the other guards too. No one is allowed inside. When one of the maids come with the food, they have to leave it in the antechamber. The bedroom door will stay closed unless I’m opening it.”

Jaehyun’s eyes widen.

“Mark, you know I can’t… The protocol says…”

Oh, yes, the protocol. Mark waves his hand, impatient.

“I know what the protocol says, Jaehyun. I spent more than half of my life studying it.” He knows guards are supposed to stand outside the room during the royal mating. He knows one of the palace ladies is supposed to come in and check whether everything is going smoothly and an heir is being produced. Mark knows everything. “Yet, no one is to enter these rooms. This is a request from the Prince Consort, and a royal order from the Crown Prince.”

“What if the king gives another royal order then? What do you expect us to do?”

“Not to barge on me having sex with my mate, Jaehyun. That’s what I expect you to do. Stay. Here.”

Jaehyun glares, but Mark glares back.

“Goddess, Donghyuck is terrified. You’re his personal guard, aren’t you? So fucking stay here and keep guard for him.”

“Wait, there’s still something-”

Jaehyun doesn’t get to finish the sentence. They both feel it, from three rooms away. Donghyuck’s distress.

“I must go. He needs me.”

“Mark…”

“For once, just this once, be the good friend you’ve always been to me, Yoonoh. I care about him so much, I don’t want to see him in pain, or shame. So do as I ask. Please.”

He doesn’t leave Jaehyun the time to say anything else, because Donghyuck barges outside the bedroom wearing only a robe, more undressed than anyone but Mark has any right to ever see him be, and smelling like Omega and impatience. Jaehyun blushes and takes a step back, eyes glued to the expanse of chest the robe reveals, before Mark steps between the two of them, glaring.

“Stay here, keep guard,” he repeats, and slams the door right in his face. He turns towards Donghyuck, who lets himself fall on the love seat in front of the table and starts plucking a grape from the trail.

“How do you feel?” Mark asks, and Donghyuck snorts.

“Sticky, uncomfortable.”

“You just bathed.”

“Inside, I mean. It’s gross.”

Gross is not the word Mark would use.

“I think it’s very hot,” he says, under his breath, and a little sliver of Donghyuck emerges through the glazed, feverish expression, as he raises one eyebrow.

“Oh, you would.”

Mark comes closer and plucks a grape from the bunch, slipping it into Donghyuck’s mouth. He feels the soft wetness of Donghyuck’s tongue lapping at his fingers and sends him a warning glance.

“Eat first.”

Donghyuck pouts and pulls Mark down, sitting on the sofa next to him, so that he can lay his head on Mark’s shoulder and close his eyes.

“What did you do during your first heat?” Mark asks, tapping Donghyuck’s lips with his thumb, budging them open to feed him grapes and small bites of cake.

Donghyuck sighs and rubs his cheek against Mark like a big cat, his eyes closed. “I don’t remember much, I told you. I remember this part, like now, just before it started. Jeno was allowed to help me, at this stage. But they had to pull him out when it really started, or he would’ve ended up fucking me. I’ve been told I was very convincing.”

“Should I anticipate?” Mark asks, in a tight, nervous tone.

“I don’t think you will need a lot of convincing, Your Highness.”

Mark wonders when Donghyuck moved from being plastered to his side to being draped all over his chest, his thighs spread over Mark’s lap. None of them are wearing anything under their robes, and Donghyuck’s was already loose to begin with.

“It’s starting, isn’t it?”

Donghyuck hums and Mark pets his hair, absentmindedly.

“The small bottle. You should drink it.”

Donghyuck peels himself from Mark to grab the small flask on the trail. He shakes it in his hand, trying to see the liquid move inside the opaque glass, but even under the direct light of the candle, nothing is shown of what’s inside.

“Who gave you this?” Donghyuck asks. “If the king finds out we’re on birth control, your supplier will probably be executed before the end of the year.”

“Even if he did, I doubt he would be able to do anything about it. This comes from my mother.”

Donghyuck blinks, suddenly interested.

“Ah, the queen. I rather like her. I think you’re her son, more than your father’s.”

“I get that often.”

“Wonder why.”

Whatever it is inside the bottle, it must taste incredibly sour, because Donghyuck’s entire face twists for a moment before he swallows. Mark pours him a glass of water and pulls him up, leading him back to the bedroom when he’s done. They rid themselves of the clothes and lie on the bed, waiting for the heat to start.

The sky is dark outside. It has been dark for a while. The palace is almost ready to go to sleep. Mark caresses Donghyuck’s hair slowly, in silence, feeling the body in his arms grow hotter and hotter, feeling Donghyuck squirm now and then. His scent is deeper now, darker, like flower wine, and as intoxicating.

“Have you ever wanted children?” Mark asks, more to himself than to Donghyuck, thinking the other boy has fallen asleep. He should, he would definitely need the rest, but Donghyuck stirs at his words.

“Before presenting, yes. I wanted children. I wanted to teach them how to shoot and to sing them songs.”

Mark thinks about the bow and arrows Yukhei is hiding in his room. He thinks he wouldn’t mind Donghyuck teaching their children either things.

“What about now?”

Donghyuck wriggles in his lap a little more, finding the perfect angle to rest his head on the crook of Mark’s neck. When he speaks, his voice is lazy, thick with sleep.

“It doesn’t really matter what I want. We have to produce an heir, or two. Or three, even better. Though, I must confess, if you keep being the way you are, I don’t think you’ll live long enough to give me a third child. The king needs an heir, and you’re only as irreplaceable as long as there isn’t another one, and easier to control.”

 _My father wouldn’t,_ almost says Mark, but he doesn’t really have any reason to say it. He doesn’t know, honestly, what his father would or wouldn’t do to keep his power.

Donghyuck falls asleep soon after that, the last sleep he will get for the next two days probably, and Mark doesn’t have it in itself to disturb him to ask more questions.

 

❃

 

The sky is sobering up, from black to a bleak grey, the sun hiding behind a thick dome of cloud, when Donghyuck’s heat starts. It’s not Donghyuck’s weak cry that wakes Mark up, or the scorching heat of his skin, or the sweat that makes their bodies damp and uncomfortable, or the spike in Donghyuck’s scent.

It’s none of these things and all of them at the same time. It’s the want. A biological need engraved in Mark’s body like an ancestral law is carved on the walls of a temple, to be followed by everyone, without question, on pain of death. It’s the want, carried by his blood like a holy word, amplified by the bond, screamed by every single cell in his body. It’s Donghyuck’s same existence that calls to him, and the fact that his Omega needs him and that he’s the only one who can help his Omega. And he wants to do it.

Mark wakes up hard and tense, with an armful of soft Omega writhing in his lap. Donghyuck’s face is damp, not from sweat - not _only_ from sweat. Tears have streaked their way down his face, disappearing beyond his chin, and he’s hard against Mark’s stomach and soft everywhere else. He’s whispering, under his breath, words that Mark cannot understand, in the singsong cadence of the native language of the Islands, one that he has never spoken to Mark, one that Mark didn’t even know Donghyuck could speak.

“Donghyuck,” Mark calls, but Donghyuck doesn’t listen, can’t listen. He spreads his legs, rubs the crack of his ass against the base of Mark’s cock, and murmurs foreign pleas at Mark’s ear. His lips are velvety, and so is his voice, and Mark cannot understand a single word of what he’s saying but he doesn’t need to anyway, not when every one of them sounds so lovely, so fond, so desperate. He has dreamed for months to hear Donghyuck talk to him like this, to feel Donghyuck curling around him like this, pliant, pliant and quiet, and utterly enamored with him. And now that he has it, it feels wrong.

“Donghyuck,” he tries again, but Donghyuck bites at his bottom lip instead of answering, licking at the seam of Mark’s mouth, his damp lashes tickling Mark’s skin. When he pulls back, his eyes are glassy, unfocused, and scarily empty of anything but lust and tears, and his mouth is slack, still open in a never-ending streak of heavy, short pants. He licks his lips, chasing Mark’s taste on them with his tongue, then pushes Mark down and climbs over his body. He takes Mark’s cock in his hand, pumps him once, twice, and leans down again to whisper at Mark’s ear, “Please.”

And Mark is hard, his cock heavy and erect, rubbing against Donghyuck’s rear, between his buttocks, and there’s no way this will end without him popping a knot, especially with Donghyuck’s scent hanging heavy between them, with Donghyuck himself hanging heavy all around him, but this… this was never what he wanted. The kingdom is full of sex dolls, too drunk on pheromones and heat hormones to even be aware of who’s fucking them - Mark would know, he did fuck one of them back in the time, and even then the water boy wasn’t even half as gone as Donghyuck is now.

“Please,” Donghyuck begs, again, mindless and lost. “Please fuck me, please…” He squeezes his eyes shut and, for a moment, it feels like the last shreds of sanity are keeping him there, but as soon as he reopens them Mark can feel how wrecked and wasted he is. “Please breed me,” Donghyuck whispers, and even his voice sound sexy, wrecked, a promise of ruin. “Please, please, Alpha, I want your knot, I need your knot, please.”

It’s wrong, it’s so wrong, and Mark wonders, how deep Donghyuck has been hiding all of this, this raw, blind want. He wonders if this is how things would’ve gone, if Donghyuck had drunk the flower wine before their wedding night, if this monster made of craving and tears and sweet words has always been lying under the surface, only waiting for Donghyuck to lower his guard to come out, and if the strong grip Donghyuck kept on his self-control for months has been the only dam between his own self and this bursting of utter humiliation. It’s wrong because it shouldn’t be like this. Being an Omega is not about losing control, being an Omega is about relinquishing control, but this… this is just having no control at all, and at least it explains why Donghyuck was so ashamed, so scared. It is scary for Mark too, to see him like this.

“Donghyuck, Donghyuck you have to listen to me,” he insists, but Donghyuck doesn’t even hear him. He holds himself open, tries to sink himself on Mark’s cock, and that’s where Mark realizes he has to stop this or he’s going to panic and hurt them both. He pushes Donghyuck away, disentangling them, and Donghyuck struggles as much as he can to stop him but he’s too weak, his body gives up under Mark’s touch. When Mark manages to pin him to the bed again, he’s crying again, half sobbing half moaning, rutting against Mark’s thigh.

“Why?” he asks, crying. “Don’t you like me? Don’t you want to fuck me good?”

It would be so easy to give in, Mark could fuck Donghyuck so good, Donghyuck even gave him permission, didn’t he? To Mark and no one else. (Is it really permission if Donghyuck didn’t have any other choice? Is it really consent if Donghyuck doesn’t even understand what’s happening?)

“Donghyuck,” Mark says, and it sounds different this time, so different, as the bond seethes and hisses between them, forcing Donghyuck to pay attention. It’s Mark’s first time trying to use his Alpha pheromones on an Omega - not only it’s considered disgracious to use an Omega’s own nature against them to force them to do anything, but if the Omega is mated to someone else it is punishable by hanging - and he has no idea of what he’s doing. Despite having the right to do it, as Donghyuck’s mate, husband, and Alpha, Mark never dared to do it to Donghyuck before. He somehow had a feeling his mate wouldn’t have appreciated to be toyed around with this, not in the slightest. But, this time, only this time, Mark will try to do it.

He lets his scent out, full force, and tugs on the bond to make Donghyuck listen.

“Donghyuck,” he repeats, and Donghyuck thrashes in his hold, shaking his head, but he can’t refuse the call. Mark is _his_ Alpha so he _has_ to listen. “I can’t fuck you unless you calm down, do you understand me?”

Donghyuck whimpers, “Yes, yes you can!”, and Mark’s fingers press deeper into the skin of his hips.

“No, I can’t, not if you’re like that. I want you to stay with me, if you’re not here with me I won’t touch you.”

“Why are you being like this?” Donghyuck asks, his voice broken, tears streaming down his face, and Mark leans down to kiss his cheeks and tastes them. They’re salty.

“Because I told you, didn’t I? That I’ll take care of you, that I’ll catch you. That I won’t let you fall.”

Donghyuck sniffles, but he finally nods, following Mark’s words like a beacon through the treacherous fogs of his own desire.

“But I want to fall,” Donghyuck sobs, and he’s starting to sound a little more like himself with every word. Maybe it’s self-defense, maybe he’s so ashamed of his own heat, of being an Omega, of losing even the smallest ounce of control, that he would rather throw it all out and not even be awake for it, but Mark cannot allow that. “You’re so cruel, Minhyung. I’m here, begging you, and you won’t even give me this.”

 _Yes,_ Mark thinks, _I am cruel. It would be so easier to give you what you’re desperately begging for, to fuck you now that you can’t remember, to breed you like you asked so that when you wake up you will only find the bruises and the faint sourness at the back of your throat. But I want you to be lucid when I fuck you. I want you to enjoy it, I want you to be aware that it’s me, that I’m the one making you feel like that. I am cruel, and selfish, and in love, and I want you and only you and nothing less than you._

“It’s because I love you too much, sunshine,” Mark says, and Donghyuck groans this time, in embarrassment and not in lust, and hides his face behind his hands. Mark pulls them away to kiss them. “I don’t want this to be ugly for you, I don’t want it to be shameful. I want to make you feel good, because it is good. I can show you. Let me show you.”

Donghyuck closes his eyes, grits his teeth. When he opens them again, it’s him again, sweaty and messy and hard and panting and ruined before they even start, but it’s him.

“Well,” he beckons, locking eyes with Mark, “what are you waiting for?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I guess next chapter has... more heat? I'm giving up on predicting what will happen at this point ;;
> 
> (also we still don't have an update schedule, i'll do my best to write the next chapter when i can!)


	18. xviii. warmth spills out. keep it to yourself, you say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be super super quick this time.  
> \- The meaning of Mark's name is mostly made up by me. Of course in this fic they're not speaking English, but I still wanted to play with the meaning of the word mark, though the meaning I gave it is not exactly the same as the meaning of the name Mark in our universe.  
> \- Golden swallows, just like goldenrod flowers, do not exist.  
> \- Again, this might be the last chapter in a few weeks or not (I'm aware it's not ideal to leave the fic pending for a long time, but I can't foresee how difficult will the next weeks be bc this week and the last week I had national holidays that spared me a few classes), so I'll just do my best to update soon.  
> \- Thank you so much for the support, you really are amazing readers and I hope I'm giving you back at least a small part of all the positivity and happiness you gave me. This story wouldn't exist if it wasn't for all the people who cheered me up and encouraged me and your influence goes beyond ficwriting and you always wish me the best in my uni life too and I can't express how good and connected and loved it makes me feel. Thank you so, so much.
> 
> \- [chapter title inspiration](https://avolitorial.tumblr.com/post/171398152982/bracketed-from-translation-by-anne-carson)  
> \- the songs for this chapter are Wildfire by SYML, 1000x by Jarryd James, Broods and Crash by Lee Hester, [here](https://twitter.com/aprilclaws/status/1156324062047670272) you can find the updated playlist.

Mark will not remember this morning with fondness or pleasure and he’s sure Donghyuck won’t either. They will both remember this morning, though - Mark made sure of it, whether they like it or not - and that is going to be enough.

“You are such a self-absorbed, stubborn asshole, Your Highness,” Donghyuck mumbles, through gritted teeth, every word a pained hiss. “You’ve always been… The most insufferable person I’ve ever met in my whole life.”

Mark pettily snaps his hips forward, making Donghyuck’s complaints end up in a whine.

“Oh, the feeling is mutual, darling.”

It’s not the first time Mark calls him darling, but the outrage blooming on Donghyuck’s face at being called pet names never gets old, so Mark says it again, just to tease him.

“Darling, sweetheart, little star, sunshine.”

“Can you please fucking stop-”

Donghyuck’s entire body clenches on Mark’s cock and this time it’s Mark’s snicker that breaks on the edge of a moan. He looks down, where his body is connected to Donghyuck’s, and drives his cock inside Donghyuck deeper, deliberately trying to bottom out, to no avail.

“My knot won’t fit if you don’t relax, you know?”

“Well, you have to stop riling me up then,” Donghyuck answers, breathless, and Mark wants to stop and kiss his stupid, offended pout, but he’s afraid of Donghyuck might bite him if he tries. He lays his hands on Donghyuck's sides instead, stroking the heated skin, chest to thighs, pressing his fingers in the dimples of Donghyuck’s hipbones until his insides unclench again, making the slide of Mark’s cock inside him easier.

With another Omega, it would have probably been easier, this whole heat ordeal, but nothing is ever easy with Donghyuck. Instead, it is difficult, and uncomfortable, and painful, and unbearably slow. Mark talks to Donghyuck, constantly engaging him in shallow bantering just to keep him focused on him, and lucid, as much as an Omega in heat can be lucid, and he stops whenever he feels Donghyuck slipping through his fingers, drowning in the heat of their joined bodies. It’s easy to realize when it’s happening - Donghyuck in heat has such a vivid, dirty imagination, and such a potty mouth, his sweet voice even sweeter when he’s using it to whisper things that would be too racy even for Yukhei’s stack of licentious, banned novels. When it happens, Mark slows down and focuses on their bond, tugging on it sharply while teasing Donghyuck with slow, shallow strokes that leave him unsatisfied and restless, his scent peaking sharply together with his frustration.

(And Donghyuck cries and bites him, hard, on the meat of his shoulder, where his first mating bite is, sending pinpricks of pain that turn to pleasure when they reach Mark’s cock. He curses against Mark's skin, so outraged, so offended at the thought of being denied what he wants, what he needs, so angry, so himself again. Mark squeezes his hand, feels the way Donghyuck’s fingers curl around his own, seeking his presence, his touch. He kisses Donghyuck’s brow, murmurs words of encouragement at his temple, into the drenched golden strands of his hair, and fists Donghyuck’s cock until he comes, again, a sweet, temporary relief, a well earned reward. And it’s still not enough.)

And it’s difficult for Mark too, because he’s not made of stone - he’s made of flesh and blood, of want, and hormones, and even more want, so much want that it feels like it’s the only thing left of him, wanting to fuck Donghyuck like they’re both nothing more than animals. When that happens, ironically, it’s Donghyuck who brings him back, who anchors him to reality.

“Don’t you dare,” Donghyuck hisses, like an angry cat, as he draws red lines over the expanse of Mark’s back with his nails. “If I have to be lucid for this whole thing you’re going to stay focused with me, or the first thing I’ll do after this torture ends will be stabbing you with your own sword.”

The sting of the scratches makes everything look more vivid, overexposed, and nitid, but it’s Donghyuck’s voice that really does the trick. Mark shakes his head, Donghyuck’s eyes suddenly coming back into focus, as if emerging from the fog.

 _I’m here,_ Mark almost says, but in the end he just leans down to lay a quick kiss on Donghyuck’s lips. Donghyuck hears it anyway and sucks on Mark’s top lip as if to answer that he’s still there too. His thighs slide down Mark’s torso, slick from sweat, and Mark’s rhythm falters for a moment as the angle changes, putting more pressure on his cock. He spreads Donghyuck’s legs again, wider than before, and Donghyuck winces, struggling to keep them bent to give Mark enough space.

“Are you tired?” Mark asks, and Donghyuck grits his teeth.

“Just wondering when you’re planning on knotting me because I don’t think this will ever stop until you do.”

Mark bites back a laugh at that - trust Donghyuck to be snarky even when he’s like this, hair matted with sweat and glued to his forehead, his chest flushed, his cock still hard and leaking despite how many times he’s come, and it must be unbearable, shy of painful, and yet Donghyuck manages to frown and scoff and complain, he manages to look down on Mark even when he’s lying under him. Omega or not, heat or not, always golden, always princely, always fighting. Just like Mark likes him best. Fuck quiet and pliant.

“Don’t laugh at me, asshole. Goddess, I hate Alphas, I fucking hate all of you, and especially you,” Donghyuck says, but he’s panting too harshly to come off as intimidating. “Come on, I’ve come like, six times? Can’t you just get over with it?”

“I’m just trying to tire you out. Once I come, I won’t be able to get it up for a few hours, so if you get dick crazy you’ll have to deal with it on your own.”

“Fuck you, the world doesn’t revolve around your dick.”

“Are you sure?” Mark asks. “Because, right now, I’m pretty positive my entire world is wrapped around my dic-”

Donghyuck pulls himself up, probably to choke Mark with his own hands, but Mark speeds up instead and leans over him, to lick the sweat from his collarbone, making him whine softly when the added weight of Mark’s body pins him down, putting even more pressure on his belly.

“Call my name,” Mark whispers, “please? I’m so close.”

Donghyuck winds his arms around Mark’s neck, drags him down, skin on skin, wet and disgustingly loud as they slide against each other, Mark already rutting more than thrusting as he feels the knot swell, dragging against Donghyuck’s rim. Donghyuck feels it too, and he shivers, uncontrollably, and clenches down onto it, and Mark doesn’t know if it’s because he’s afraid, or excited, what this sudden rush of adrenaline means, but whatever it is he feels it too, through the skin, through Donghyuck’s moan, through the bond tying them together so tight they can barely breathe.

“Minhyung,” Donghyuck whispers, at his ear, and Mark grounds down, past the resistance of his body, into tight heat. He’s beyond the point of composure now, and it’s ugly, dirty fucking, vicious and merciless and painful. And yet Mark is not afraid to let go, because Donghyuck’s body is just like Donghyuck himself, vicious, merciless, and not afraid of pain. Donghyuck is not as loose as the other two Omegas Mark fucked, not as slick, not as soft, he resists and he struggles and he doesn’t know whether to pull Mark close or shove him far from him, whether to rut up against him or squirm away, and when he clenches around Mark’s knot, Mark is not sure if it is to keep it in or push it out. That, too, is very much like the Donghyuck Mark knows, the Donghyuck Mark has grown to cherish, contradictory and chaotic and unfathomable and yet so consistent, so transparent and crystal clear, shining like the sea under the summer sun.

“Minhyung,” Donghyuck repeats, and his fingers curl at the back of Mark’s nape, surprisingly tender, and the only thing Mark wants is to carve a space for himself inside his body, brand him so deep that he won’t even be able to breathe without remembering Mark was there.

“I would’ve liked to see you be crowned king,” Mark murmurs, like an apology, like a man burning up, on the verge of coming and claiming Donghyuck as his own. “I wanted to sit at the same table with you, as equals. You would’ve been so beautiful. But I’m greedy, I’m too greedy, I like you too much like this, in my arms.”

Donghyuck sobs, with his whole body.

“Me too,” he cries, and it doesn’t matter if it’s the heat talking, he still looks so pretty as he says it. “I like this too.”

Mark closes his eyes and stutters, trying to move forward, go further, but there’s nowhere else to go. He comes, with his lips on Donghyuck’s jaw and his hands on Donghyuck’s hips, and Donghyuck’s voice chanting his name in his ears.

 

❃

 

The sun is nowhere to be seen. Against gray clouds, the last crowned swallows of the season are flying away. If sun was shining on them, the feathers at the top of their heads would glitter in gold, but the sun is hiding and the swallows leave like countless black dots in the sky. They’ll follow the winds to the islands, and then further, to the lands on the other side of the sea, where no one in the Vale has ever been.

“What are you looking at?”

Donghyuck rolls on his stomach with a soft hiss of pain and leans over to look outside the window, following the line of Mark’s eyes. The blanket slides down his shoulder, and Mark pulls it up again, shielding him from the cold air. His hand lingers for a moment on Donghyuck’s nape, before he pulls away.

“I was watching the last remnants of fall leave,” Mark answers. He points to the black arrow of birds crossing the sky. “They’re running away from the snow.”

Donghyuck suddenly looks more awake. His eyes get even bigger.

“Snow? When?”

“It’s only a matter of days, at this point.”

“I’ve never seen snow before,” Dognhyuck confesses. “I’ve seen storms and typhoons, and hail too, sometimes. And sleet, once, but never real snow. The white snow from the books.”

 _The white snow from the books._ Mark thinks of the sun rising over the white peaks of the Clairs, how Donghyuck would’ve loved it.

“Oh, you’re going to see a lot of it. My uncle in the Clairs says it’s going to snow a lot this year.”

“Do you like it when it snows?”

Mark shakes his head. “It’s cold and wet and it sneaks inside my boots while I’m training. But it’s really pretty, so I guess you will like it.”

“Cold and wet?” Donghyuck says, burrowing against Mark’s side. “Mh, I don’t think I’ll like it then.”

“We’ll wrap you up in furs and go down the hill on a sleigh. I really don’t like the snow, but playing in it can be funny. I’ll take you there, I promise. You’re going to love it.”

“Will that be allowed, though?”

Their eyes meet, as Mark’s smile freezes on his face. Oh, right, the protocol. Mark takes a deep sigh, falling back against his pillow and pulling Donghyuck with him.

“I was thinking,” he says, as he cards his hand through Donghyuck’s hair, “about what will happen to us after your heat ends.”

Donghyuck’s body immediately tenses, but he forces himself to stay still, listening. Mark braces himself as he tries to find the right words, even though he has a vague idea Donghyuck is not going to like what he has to say regardless of the words he uses.

“I want to take you away from the palace.”

He’s met with a moment of stupefied silence as Donghyuck processes his words for a moment before he frowns and shakes his head.

“Your father will not let us-”

“Well, he will have to,” Mark insists, sighing when Donghyuck’s frown tightens. “Look, he can punish both of us, sure, but that won’t make us produce an heir any faster. And we’re both too uncomfortable here, with the whole court staring at us and pointing fingers and whispering about the lack of a royal baby. I know you’re tired of this situation and I’m tired too.”

Donghyuck’s expression turns even sourer.

“The king will refuse,” he only says, bluntly, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“He will, in the beginning, but he can’t refuse forever. I’m his heir, not his puppet, and I want to leave the palace.”

Donghyuck takes Mark’s hands between his own.

“You really don’t understand, do you? Of course you’re not his puppet, and he knows it too, he knows very well how popular and loved you are. No one in the whole kingdom can question your worth as Crown Prince, not even the king himself. But until now you’ve always followed his lead, and he trusts you to be on his side. But if you start antagonizing him, Mark, he’ll stop trusting you. And he already doesn’t trust me, if he thinks I’m steering you on my side he’ll make our lives miserable.”

“More than they already are?” Mark asks, and Donghyuck clicks his tongue.

“Don’t play smart with me, Mark. Why would he agree to your request? To make me happier? I’m just a political hostage here, a token of loyalty from a country that has been your enemy for more time you can remember. And your father is the Alpha of this country.”

“And I am his son, and I’m so tired Donghyuck. I’m tired of these stupid rules. Why do you think I refused to have a child with you? The moment you’re found pregnant they’ll take you away from me because the protocol says that it’s not proper for the royal couple to share a bed unless they’re mating. Then I wouldn't be able to see you until the baby is born, and after that only for your heat or my rut. And after the birth, do you think they’d let any of us see our child? My mother raised me until I was four years old, and only because I was the second child. My father never approved of it, but she threatened him she’d do something terrible if he took me away from her, and even then I could only stay with her for a few years before he separated us again. He will not let you raise our children, Donghyuck. You’ll never teach them archery, or sing to them, and I want you to do that. I want to be there when it happens. And it can’t happen here, so we need to leave.”

Donghyuck doesn’t say anything while Mark talks. When Mark is done Donghyuck lays his head on Mark’s chest, his cheek warm over Mark’s heart. He closes his eyes - Mark feels the fluttering of his lashes against the skin, light like fairy wings - and lets out a sad little laugh.

“I can’t believe you turned out to be such a decent person,” he says, in a tiny, tiny voice. “All those years thinking you were a pushover. And when I need you to lay low, you actually refuse. Ah, the irony.”

“All those years I wasted hating you,” Mark counters, pettily, “and you turned out to be the reason I’ve become such a decent person.”

Donghyuck looks up, and even under the bleak, gray light of the last day of fall, he shines like a summer child. He tilts his head to look at Mark and almost smiles.

“Don’t be such a fool, it wasn’t because of me. You were a good person from the beginning.” He looks down, unable to stare back at Mark. “A good prince, a good husband, and a good mate. I’m sure you would be a good father.”

“I just want a chance to try being all of those things Donghyuck. I want both of us to have a chance…”

Donghyuck doesn’t reply for a long time and Mark doesn’t press him for an answer either. They just lie together, quietly, sharing body warmth as the day wastes away.

 

❃

 

“What’s the meaning of your name?”

Mark blinks, and even that is almost too tiring for him. He feels spent, completely drained. He might fall asleep in the bath and drown happily, with the last orgasm still tingling in his body. What a way to go.

“Mark, Mark, tell me please?”

He only moans in response to Donghyuck’s obnoxious questions, but Donghyuck somehow has enough strength left to splash water at him. It gets caught on his eyes and the bath salts sting.

“Oh, come on!”

He tries to glare at Donghyuck, but he can’t see anything. He can hear Donghyuck giggle though.

“In the islands, it’s the High Priestess who chooses the name of the future king,” Donghyuck tells him, his voice skating on the surface of the water. “It’s according to our personality and achievements.”

“What if you haven’t achieved anything yet?” Mark asks when he finally manages to find a towel and rub his eyes clean from the soapy water.

“Past and future achievements are both counted. The priestess is the voice of the goddess, and the goddess knows everything. Apparently though, she didn’t know I was going to turn out an Omega and that I didn’t really need a royal name, for she had already found one for me when I presented.”

“Which one?”

Donghyuck purses his lips and shows Mark his tongue.

“Not telling. It doesn’t matter anymore, I’ll never use that name. So, who chose your name, Prince Mark of the Vale of the Giants?” Donghyuck asks, leaning back against the edge of the pool to stare at Mark.

Mark hesitates for a moment. In the Vale the royal name of a prince is chosen by the patriarch of your family, in Mark’s case his father since his grandfather passed away during a border skirmish with the raiders from the desert, long before his father was even married to the Lady of the Clairs.

“The king did,” he answers in the end. “And it’s not for any achievement, both past and future. It’s more about what he wanted me to be. Though I’m not sure I met the expectations.”

“Why?”

“Mark is a name that has been passed down for generations in our family, a name for great leaders and warlords and commanders who expanded our borders. It stands for conqueror. He who claims, or leaves a sign on the world. My father gave me this name so that I could steal back Condor’s Peak from the Empire, apparently.”

It’s not a story Mark is fond of. The name was meant for Sungmin, not him, and it was chosen even before either of them were born. Donghyuck must sense something is wrong because he comes closer, brushing his fingers against Mark’s arm.

“Isn’t Condor’s Peak where Prince Jaemin is from?” he asks.

“Yes. It used to be part of the Vale, like the rest of the Clairs, but during the last real war against Na Empire it was defeated and occupied. The emperor even married the lady who was betrothed to the king, Prince Jaemin’s mother. My mother was actually the second choice, can you believe that?”

“I can hardly imagine your mother being anyone’s second choice.”

Mark shrugs. “Well, in short words my father never really forgave the Empire for what happened back then. He swore his son would take back what was ours, and that’s how my name came to be.”

Donghyuck purses his lips, his eyes going distant, lost somewhere Mark cannot reach him.

“Isn’t it amusing?” he murmurs. “Two generations, two arranged marriages gone wrong. Your father wasn’t supposed to marry your mother, but another woman. You weren’t supposed to marry me, but my sister.”

Mark watches the water slosh against Donghyuck’s shoulders and neck and thinks that amusing is not the word he’d use in this situation.

“My father never loved my mother. He was wary of her, of the power she held. He got her pregnant as soon as he could and once he had his heirs he refused to see her. She was a lot like you. Proud, beautiful, incredibly smart. Powerful.” Come to think of it, Mark can see a lot of his mother in Donghyuck, and if he can then his father can see it too. No wonder he doesn’t like Donghyuck, then.

“That’s a great compliment to receive, Your Highness.”

“She was also, and she has always been, incredibly sad. From the day she came to this palace, my mother has been a caged bird. She accepted this role to save her people, just like you did. She was brave, like you are. And yet… seeing her like that breaks my heart. That’s why I don’t want the same thing to happen to you. I want you to be happy here, with me.”

Donghyuck doesn’t answer. He lets himself slide down, until half of his face is hidden in the water and his curls unfold in the water, surrounding his face like a golden halo. He closes his eyes. Like this, he could pass for a mountain spring spirit, a folklore creature Johnny loved to tell Mark about when he was young and believed in fairytales. They live in the boiling water that springs from the belly of the mountains and call to the travelers to join them with their sweet voice, seeking to eat them after they boil to death. They look so beautiful it’s difficult to believe they’re real, but they always hide the lower half of their face to avoid showing their mouths, bristling with razor-sharp teeth. Mark laughs inwardly and pulls on a blond lock until Donghyuck resurfaces again, glaring at him.

“What was that for?” he asks. That’s it, no sharp fangs. Heart-shaped lips.

“Just making sure you’re still you,” Mark asks. “Sometimes, I don’t really know. I look at you and… I can’t believe what I see. You look too pretty to be real. You look like a lie.“

Donghyuck doesn’t answer at that. He stands up, and suddenly there’s so much skin, golden and wet and littered with the marks left on him by their previous mating. It’s not enough, Mark thinks. He needs to leave more.

Donghyuck sends him a pointed look before he walks back to the bedroom, leaving wet imprints on the floor. It must be starting - again, so soon - and despite Mark having come twice only yesterday, he feels his cock filling again. He sighs, wet and deep, in the humid air of the bathroom, before he gets up.

_The conqueror. He who claims, or leaves a sign on the world._

Maybe not the world, Mark thinks, maybe just a boy. He wants to claim him, leave his sign on him. He doesn’t need the world when he has this boy.

 

❃

 

Mark wakes up because he’s cold and because Donghyuck is stirring, again, in the middle of the night. He’s not sure how much time has passed since they last had sex. A few minutes, a few hours? Maybe only a moment. Mark’s everything hurts and he can’t even imagine how sore Donghyuck must be feeling right now. When Mark looks at him, Donghyuck looks smudged, like an old letter that was read too many times, fingertips dragging the ink until the words are unintelligible. He also looks cold. He’s shivering, burrowing into the mattress to escape the breeze that blows inside through the open window.

Mark sighs and gets up, ignoring the protests of his overworked muscles to go and close the window. It’s a good thing though, that Donghyuck feels cold. When Mark presses his palm against Donghyuck’s forehead, the skin is a bit damp, but not as warm as it’s been since his heat started. It’s the third night already, and the fever that has eaten at Donghyuck’s body, barely giving him any reprise for the last few days, seems to be finally subsiding.

Mark slips back under the covers and Donghyuck instinctually wraps his arm around his torso, nuzzling Mark’s nape.

“Can I tell you something?” he whispers, so low that Mark thinks, for a moment, that he’s already fallen asleep again and this is a dream.

He mumbles something in response and hears Donghyuck rustle behind him. Not a dream.

“I’ve never told you but… I’m glad you refused me, the night we got married.” Donghyuck’s words are slow, measured, like every one of them weighs too much on his tongue to be let out carelessly.

Mark groans, suddenly hit by the fact that Donghyuck is talking about his feelings, right when Mark is too exhausted to do anything but lie down and listen. He blinks a few times, willing himself to wake up and focus, and tries to turn around and face Donghyuck, but Donghyuck’s arms tighten around him, keeping him from moving. The only thing he can do is cover Donghyuck’s hands with his own, encouraging him to keep talking.

“You were right,” Donghyuck continues. “You’ve always been right. I wanted to hate you, and I wanted to hate this, so bad. I still hate it, you can’t even imagine how much I hate it, but I’m glad it was with you and not with anyone else.”

It’s not a love declaration, far from it. Donghyuck has been clear about it and it’s so stupid and foolish to have hope, but Mark is stupid and foolish like that.

“I know this isn’t what you wanted,” he manages to croak out, his voice sounding too rough and used for this conversation. “I know if you could choose you would be somewhere else, anywhere else. Sometimes I hope you could just do it, leave and be free, so that the next time we meet, we do it as equals. It feels like... like since you came here like this, I never really had a chance with you.”

“Do you think you would’ve had one if we hadn’t been forced to marry like this?” Donghyuck asks, and his voice is sharp in a way that is at the same time familiar, because that’s how Donghyuck always sounded like in Mark’s childhood, and unfamiliar, because Donghyuck hasn’t sounded like that for a long time now.

“Would you give me one, if I let you go?” Mark asks back.

Donghyuck bides his time before he answers. When he does, a hint of bitter amusement taints his voice. “If I could leave, I’d run away as fast as my legs would carry me,” he says, slow and methodic and lethal, and Mark can’t see him but he knows he’s smiling, and he knows _how_ he’s smiling, that bitter, sharp smile of his, like he’s sharing a cruel joke. Mark doesn’t smile back.

 _I would chase you,_ he thinks. _And I would catch you, in the end._

“But you know I can’t let you leave, Donghyuck,” he says, instead.

“I know,” Donghyuck replies, with a sigh. “I wouldn’t leave either. Well, more like I can’t. I married you, didn’t I? Till death do us part. But I don’t regret it, it was the right thing to do, the only thing I could do for my country. And I thought it would be worse, but I think we can live well together, you and I... I think I don’t mind having you as my husband. There’s only one thing I want to ask of you.”

“Tell me.”

“You won’t like it, but I know you’ll do it for me. You’ve proved what kind of person you are over and over. I know I can trust you to do this.”

 _Can you?_ Mark thinks. Can he, really?

“What is it?”

Donghyuck slowly disentangles himself from Mark’s hold, rolling onto his side, so that there’s enough space between them that their skin is not touching and they can both keep their head clear.

“You said you like me, but… it might not always be like that.” Mark opens his mouth to complain, but Donghyuck shushes him. “You’re so naive, you think love lasts forever, but it doesn’t. It just doesn’t work like that. One minute you are head over heels over someone, and then suddenly you realize it wasn’t love, you just wanted to convince yourself it was because it was easier. Just like I know it’s easier for you to accept this marriage if you think you love me, I know it’s convenient-”

“Donghyuck!”

“Let me finish! I’m being honest with you, for once, so let me finish.” The room is too dark to see Donghyuck’s face, and he’s looking down, on purpose, so that his hair covers his eyes. “It was the same for me. I wanted to hate you so bad, but you proved me that I only wanted to make things easier for myself, and I think you’re doing the same right now. Just not with hate, but… You think you love me.”

Donghyuck extends a hand and curls it around Mark’s jaw. It’s gentle, almost fond, and yet Mark wants to pull it away. It hurts. This is the Donghyuck who hurts him the most, not the one who wants to hurt him, the one who wants to protect him.

“You’ll fall out of love with me, Mark,” this Donghyuck says, and everything in him is tender, his touch, his voice, his body too, still tender on the inside where Mark claimed him as his mate. “I know it will happen at some point, and when it happens, when you fall in love with someone else, I want you to know that, as long as you don’t sire a bastard, you don’t have to hold yourself back because of me. You’re free to do as it pleases you. You’re free to chase love if you find it.”

Oh, Mark thought Donghyuck was cruel, but he never thought he could be this cruel. He looks up at Mark, with his big, warm eyes, and words tumble down his lips, and he looks so pretty and serious and focused as he cuts Mark’s heart in two.

“This has always been a political marriage, and I know it will be a happy marriage, because you will make sure it is. You will make me happy, that’s the kind of man you are. I just want you to be happy too. I don’t want you to feel trapped with me.”

He looks so hopeful, so calm, like he really is proud of himself for doing such a good thing for Mark. Mark only wants to shake him, maybe scream at him a little. _What if it’s really love? What if you just broke my heart?_

“Is that what happened with your fiance?” he asks through gritted teeth. “Did you love him and he fell in love with someone else? Did he feel trapped because of you?”

The shadow that passes on Donghyuck’s face leaves him bleaker and paler than the moon outside, and, in a sick, sick way, that makes Mark feel better. For a moment, he made Donghyuck look scared, staring at Mark as if wondering how much he really knows. Mark doesn’t really know anything but what Dongyoung told him, what the entire kingdom of the Southern Islands already knew - the prince and his betrothed were not on best terms with each other, they could barely stand to be in the same room - and it’s not enough to understand, to unravel the mystery that is Donghyuck, but Mark is ready to pretend he already knows if it helps him take the truth out of Donghyuck’s reluctant lips.

“How did you… No, wait, I don’t want… I don’t want to know.” The hand on Mark’s jaw retreats, as if burns, as if poisoned. It hangs in the air between the two of them, unsure of what to do, before Donghyuck pulls it back to his heart. “You’re wrong, though. It didn’t go like that, at all. In fact, more than him breaking my heart, I think I was the one who broke his. This is why I know, Minhyung, that sometimes it’s not love, we’re just fooling ourselves into thinking it is. I thought I loved him, I really did. And then, suddenly, I realized I was a fool. He never forgave me for it. So please, don’t fall in love with me. I don’t think I deserve it.”

Mark’s heart rushes. He doesn’t know what this means, he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand at all. He opens his mouth, he closes it, painfully aware of Donghyuck staring at him, waiting for his reaction.

“I can’t promise I won’t fall in love with you. Whether you believe me or not, I think it’s too late for that.” Mark hears Donghyuck suck in a sharp breath, but doesn’t let him say anything. Donghyuck has already hurt him enough. “However, I can promise you that if I ever fall in love with someone, I will not let you hinder me from going for what I really want.”

“That’s the only thing I wish for, really-”

“At one condition.”

Donghyuck’s expression hardens again.

“And which condition might it be?”

“You said you fell in love with someone else. I want to know who they are.”

Donghyuck looks in Mark’s eyes and he might as well not say anything because Mark already knows what he’ll answer.

“No.”

 

❃

 

Mark doesn’t know if Donghyuck has fallen asleep or he’s just that good at pretending. As for him, he just cannot sleep. Shreds of the conversation he had with Donghyuck crowd his mind, all piled up on top of another, heavy, like wet rags choking him.

No, Donghyuck has said - and, well, was that so surprising?

(“Then you can keep your good intentions and good wishes.”

“Why do you have to be so stubborn over this? Don’t you understand? It doesn’t matter who I fell in love with. It’s over and it won’t be no more.”

“But is it really over?”

“Of course it is. I made sure it was. This thing… this feeling… it ruined my life. Before being my fiance, Yang was my best friend. And he loved me. I certainly thought I loved him back. And then… in the end things between us were just so bitter… we couldn’t even talk, we couldn’t spend time in the same room. He said I ruined his life forever. I don’t want things to be like that with you too.”

“So you’re not in love with that person anymore? But you won't tell me who they are?”)

Donghyuck never answered that last question, and Mark knows him, he knows what kind of person his husband is. _Love is a lie, I’ll never fall in love again. I won’t fall in love with you._ He said these things, many and many times. And yet, he refuses to say he’s not in love anymore. And Donghyuck is many things, but he’s not a good liar. Not answering that question… is more of an answer than Mark could ever get if he had actually answered it.

He kicks the covers away angrily and he feels Donghyuck squirm, startled, next to him. Fuck him - oh, Mark will still have to fuck him again, for his heat is almost done, almost, but not yet done. Later, tomorrow, when the sun has risen and Mark has recomposed himself into the good person - the good prince, the good husband, the good mate - Donghyuck believes him to be.

He leaves the bedroom, closes the door at his back to head towards the cabinet in the foyer where the maids store the alcohol. He’s poured himself half a chalice of the strongest brandy he could find when someone knocks at the door so strongly it rattles, disrupting the immobility of the room.

Mark stares at it, dumbfounded.

Then the banging starts again, and this time he gets up, furious.

“I explicitly said I didn’t want to be disturbed until-” He stops mid-sentence as soon as he sees Dongyoung’s stern face. “What are you doing here? Where’s the guard?”

“The guard on duty is Jaehyun and he’s currently in an audience with the king. They left a young recruit in his place but Yukhei was able to distract him long enough for me to get you.”

Mark pales.

“What is happening?” he asks, but Dongyoung brings a hand to his mouth to shush him, before he steals a careful glance at the door of the bedroom. Donghyuck is in there, and Mark’s hand immediately goes to his side, where his sword usually is.

“Careful there. Your beauty is not in danger, but he won’t like to hear what I came to tell you, so it’s better if we move somewhere private, and soon, for I am afraid there’s not much time left.”

“What is going on, Dongyoung?”

“The king has sentenced your husband’s best friend to death.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's kind of dramatic of him.  
> (Just to be clear Jeno is NOT going to die.)
> 
> edit:  
> Please, I ask this as personal favor to everyone. If you want to comment the fic, please do it here and not on curiouscat. It is possible to comment the fic as anon without having to log on ao3, and commenting here has a lot of benefits for me such as being able to reread the comment after I reply, boosting my stats and allowing me to answer without clogging my timeline with a spam of answers (which will all be just me thanking the readers). Plus, I like to keep my cc open because sometimes people ask me very important questions about the plot or the warnings (like the anon who asked me if in this fic there was going to be character death, which led me to specify that no, Jeno is not going to die, since it could be potentially triggering) and I can answer very quickly in real time. But the problem is that I have too many asks to answer and most of them are not even questions, just fic comments, which slowls down the entire process. So if you want to comment the fic and tell me how much you liked it, for all the reasons I've listed it is better to do it here rather than on curiouscat. I still answer every single comment here too, and it's just more neat to keep comments confined to this site rather than taking over my twitter, where I have a lot of friends following me for reasons other than this fic. I'm asking this as a personal favor to everyone. I've made it clear many times that I want to interact with my readers as much as possible, but the amount of ccs I receive is so huge that a lot of friends actually adviced me to close curiouscat and stop taking questions there. I don't want to close cc, but you can help me by using it in the right way, to ask me questions, and not as a comment inbox. Please don't take this the wrong way, I already feel guilty for asking you this favor, but this fic has gone beyond my expectations and I'm just a normal person who wasn't prepared to deal with all of this and now I'm struggling to create a balance ;; Thank you for reading this.


	19. xix. if there was ever a place where i could have pressed you to the ground i would return to there

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, let me thank you, again, I do this for every chapter, just like I answer every comment, and it's because it really makes a difference for me. It makes me smile, it makes me happy, when I see a comment it can change my day. And it makes me want to write even more, despite the lack of time. So thank you for your support.  
> From now on, the notes will contain SPOILERS for this chapter so if you wish to be brave and skip the part in which I prepare you to what happens just skip the notes (I know all of you will skip anyway) and maybe come back to read them after you finish the chapter. They're kind of important.  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> I would like to make some necessary disclaimers.  
> -This is, like I said many times, a slow burn fic. It is also a very long fic. I know some readers are quite frustrated with the pace at which the main couple is slowly getting closer, but I must remind you that if they were together and happy there would be no fic left for me to write. Unfortunately, I still have quite a lot to write. I know not everyone likes the slow pace and the constant one step forward two steps back development, but this is how I decided to write my fic.  
> -I also realized many of you are frustrated with Donghyuck as a character. I have my own interpretation of him which is ofc not only personal but also a little more accurate than yours, since I know a lot more about his past than you all do, but I would really like to say something. Getting annoyed at Donghyuck because he doesn't love Mark back is unfair to him. Even if Mark loves him, even if he loves Mark back, even if they're married, Donghyuck has the right to say no. I believe relationships need to be consensual and if Donghyuck in this fic doesn't feel comfortable enough to admit his feelings, I don't think it's a bad thing. He's not faultless, but rejecting Mark's love even if he likes him back is not a fault, he has the right to do it. He has been very clear about what he wants with Mark since the beginning, and Mark has ignored his requests and has tried to make him fall anyway.  
> -The way their relationship is written right now is not healthy. I did this deliberately, but you must understand that in order for them to build a new, healthy relationship based on mutual respect and trust, I really need to destroy what they have now. I mean, I don't need /need/ to, but I want to. It's the point of this fic. Like I teased many times, this fic will have a happy ending, but it will be a long journey, and part of this journey is to face the fact that right now their relationship is not equal, is not based on trust, is not good for them, and they have to mend it somehow.  
> \- Which bring us to the last point. This chapter and the next one will probably be the angstiest of the whole fic. They've been the most difficult to write for me and I'm sure they will be difficult to read for you, but please have faith in me. I'm the writer, I know what I'm doing. I've been doing this for a very long time, so trust me.
> 
> \- [chapter title inspiration](https://avolitorial.tumblr.com/post/162098795837/from-translation-by-anne-carson-expansions-on)  
> \- the song for this chapter is Human by Christina Perri, [here](https://twitter.com/aprilclaws/status/1156324062047670272) you can find the playlist.

Mark is quite aware of the confused glances sent his way as he follows Dongyoung across the palace wearing what could barely be considered decent apparel. He glares at a servant who’s shamelessly staring at his naked chest peeking from under the jacket. She quickly looks down and scampers away before he can scold her.

“Why didn’t you call me sooner?” he whispers, and Dongyoung winces in response.

“You think I didn’t try? Not even Jaehyun could have let me in. Nor he would have. I had to wait until he left to come to you.”

The implication that Dongyoung is risking his political career and maybe even his freedom for Mark is not lost on him, but right now the whirlwind of uneasiness unraveling in his gut is too urgent to pay attention to anything that is not the possible death of Donghyuck’s best friend.

“The king was very clear. You were not to be disturbed, especially not for this.”

“This? Do you mean this politically suicidal move? A trial for a member of a diplomatic legation coming from another country? Does anyone in the Southern Islands knows that the son of a lord is being accused of… what? Treason? What the hell is my father accusing Jeno of? What could he have ever done? He was always with Donghyuck!”

Dongyoung stops abruptly as they hear the chattering of the night patrol.

“Can you please lower your voice, Mark? No one in the palace knows what is happening. It is not official yet. And we shouldn’t be here.”

“You talked about an execution.” Mark whispers this time, but it still comes out accusingly, and Dongyoung raises an eyebrow at his tone.

“That’s just what I heard from the Minister. I mean, that’s what he said your father wants, but I don’t think it will happen. It wouldn’t be… diplomatically wise.”

“It wouldn't be wise at all!” explodes Mark. “Do you have any idea who Jeno Lee is? Who his mother is? If self-destruction is what my father wants he could have just set fire to the whole kingdom, because if a single hair falls forcefully from Jeno Lee’s precious head we will have both the Islands and the Empire at our doorstep asking for an explanation before the first snow.”

“And this is why the Private Council of the King was summoned tonight to decide what to do, but a formal accusation hasn’t been made yet so there’s still time for you to do something. Not even I know what they’re accusing Jeno Lee of, but he’s been confined to his room and guarded day and night to make sure he doesn’t run away.”

Mark curses under his breath as Dongyoung stops. They’re only a few turns from the king’s private rooms and there are always guards stationed there.

“You should go,” Mark says. “It’s better if my father doesn’t see me with you.”

It’s a useless precaution because tomorrow the king will know it was Dongyoung who warned Mark, and Dongyoung is aware of that as well. Still, he came, and Mark is grateful for that. Loyalty is the most precious currency in the palace, and it must be spent carefully.

“Thank you for the heads up,” Mark says under his voice, and Dongyoung snorts.

“At least one of us decided to act like the friends we’re supposed to be. I can’t believe Jaehyun was going to backstab you like that.”

Oh, but Jaehyun wasn’t, Mark realizes, as he remembers the knight’s urgent tone a few days ago. He did try to tell Mark something, maybe related to Jeno Lee, maybe not. Still, he didn’t risk it all like Dongyoung is doing now.

“You must be careful, Mark. As much as I’d like to stay by your side and keep you from doing very dumb things all the time, this is the first and the last time I can help you. I will most likely be banished away from the capital, dispatched to some remote border town, as far away from you as possible, after tonight.”

“Then why did you do it?”

The fire of the torches blows on the shadows veiling Doyoung’s face, turning them into long, dark ghosts running on his face. They make his expression ambiguous, half-serious, half-amused, and Mark doesn’t know what to make of it. Dongyoung takes a step towards him and wraps an arm around Mark’s neck, leaning over to whisper in his ear.

“Because you’re my prince, and I’m betting on you. Remember that I helped you. When the time comes, help me back as my king.”

Oh, loyalty. The most precious currency, indeed. It is not wise to have a debt of loyalty, and yet it seems that’s exactly what Mark has now.

Dongyoung pats Mark’s back and leaves quickly, disappearing into the darkness of the palace. Mark is left alone, only a few doors away from his father and from a conversation he doesn’t want to have. He takes a deep breath, straightens his back and tries to look a little like a prince and not like a boy who spent the past three days fucking another boy. It’s difficult with Donghyuck cloying sweetness clinging to him, stickily, like honey on his skin.

“Your Highness,” murmurs one of the guards waiting at the door, eyes widening as Mark steps into the hallway. It takes a moment to get past the surprise of his appearance, his messy hair and disheveled clothes. When it happens they step closer to each other, to deny Mark access. He scoffs.

“Move.”

“We cannot, we received orders…”

“Well, you’re receiving new orders,” Mark says, and there must be something in his voice, something that these men who have known him since he was a scrawny teenager, have never heard before. “Let me in. I need to talk to the king.”

They hesitate but still don’t move away.

“His Majesty said…”

“Well, it seems like you need to choose whether you want to anger my father or me tonight. But I must warn you, my father has not left his mate in heat alone to come here, so choose wisely. I’m not really in the mood for patience.”

The two guards exchange a quick look, first between themselves and then at Mark’s face, before one of them finally turns to knock inside. The door opens a crack and the guard whispers something in the fissure. The door closes again after that.

They wait, and Mark watches the two guards grow increasingly distressed. He knows it’s because they can feel his scent and Donghyuck’s. He’s literally walking in a cloud of heat pheromones, and it’s nothing short of inappropriate, nothing like the way he usually is - a pristine prince of the Vale, always in control, always proper - but right now he couldn’t care any less.

The bond tugs at the loose ends of his conscience. Donghyuck must have woken up and realized something is wrong. Mark can feel his mate’s uneasiness inside his own chest, climbing his ribcage, its hold too tight for comfort.

(And just like he can feel Donghyuck’s, Donghyuck must be feeling his. He can probably feel the night chill on his legs like he was the one standing outside the king’s apartments, he can probably feel the colorful knot of rage and worry that has taken the place of Mark’s heart. Donghyuck is so good at reading Mark like this. How long until he learns how to read Mark’s thoughts? The only thing stopping him is probably the fear of what he could find there.)

Mark looks up when the door finally opens. It’s General Hwang, Yukhei’s father. The man who held Mark in his arms when he was a kid, piggy-backed him around the garden, taught him how to throw a flail. Mark is expecting him to be angry, but all it takes for him is a look at Mark, a whiff of his scent, and something akin to pity flashes across his face.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he says, “and someone will have to be punished if you insist on barging in now. Go back to your room, Your Highness, fuck your boy good. Get yourself a couple more days of bliss.”

But there is no bliss in Mark’s bed, there has never been. And there never will be if something happens to Jeno.

“Let me in,” Mark says, and it’s an order of the Crown Prince.

The door can do nothing but open for him.

 

❃

 

Mark expected the king to be angry, and yet when their eyes finally meet - Mark at the door, his father sitting next to the fireplace, a glass of liquor shining in his hands - more than angry the king looks... almost pleased.

“I was hoping this could wait until the end of the Prince Consort’s heat,” he says, as a greeting. Mark’s entire body tightens in annoyance at the mocking tone, but he forces himself to relax. He can’t let his father see him as a baby if he wants to make him listen - a very difficult goal to achieve considering his father has never really seen him as an adult, nor has ever really listened to him.

“I was hoping I didn’t have to leave my husband unattended because one of our esteemed diplomatic guests is in danger of losing his head,” Mark blows back.

The king scoffs, and looks at the other men in the room. Mark turns around following his gaze and catches a glimpse of Jaehyun’s nervous face.

“I think there is nothing left to discuss so you can leave now,” the king says. “I will see you again in the morrow. Jaehyun Jung, you are also dismissed, but wait outside my chambers. I will need you to report to my son when I’m done talking to him.”

Jaehyun is the first to leave, with a deep bow and not a single glance at Mark. One by one the members of the Private Council, the king’s personal advisors, say their greetings and leave the room until only General Hwang is left. He gestures for Mark to sit in front of the fireplace, in front of his father, and pats his shoulder, almost gently.

“Your Majesty, Your Highness,” he says, his final greeting.

The door closes at his back, trapping Mark alone with his father and the fire crackling in the hearth.

The king takes a long sip of the liquor and the glass in his hand catches the light of flames as it moves, tearing it apart and spreading it all around the room.

“You’re looking stern, my son,” the king says, leaning back against the backrest of his own chair. “And tired too. You should have stayed between your Omega’s golden thighs tonight. What is it that brings you here? Don’t you trust me to know how to rule my kingdom anymore?”

“I was worried, father. Do you blame me? That boy…”

“The boy is not going to lose his head, of course. Although, if he had been one of my subjects, he would have, and long before you could find the time to join us.”

Mark nods, instantly feeling relieved. At least now he knows they won’t be at war before the end of the week.

“Can I at least know what he’s being accused of?” he asks, cautiously, and the king sends him a piercing glance. He will not tell Mark, not immediately, at least. He wants to savor the moment, build the tension. He will make Mark wait, driving him in circles, frustrating him until he’s too tired to fight back.

“Why is it so important for you?” the king asks, in the end. Diversion, just like Mark had predicted. “You have no reason to care about his wellbeing. He’s just a lord from another country, not even a very important one, despite his connections. He’s certainly not worth your presence. You shouldn’t be here, Mark. You should be in your bed, doing your duty like I asked you, like the whole kingdom expects you to do.”

“You know as well as I do that Jeno Lee is Donghyuck’s best friend! You can’t…” Mark bites back his words. Despite his best efforts, the conversation is falling back again into the pattern his father wants to set. It’s like playing a game, a game of cat and mouse, and Mark is always, always the mouse, and there is either complete loss or getting out of it unscathed, but no winning for him, never any winning.

“You can’t tell me to impregnate my husband and then go and put his best friend on preventive custody, and then expect me not to be worried about this will affect him,” finishes Mark, with a frustrated sigh.

The king unexpectedly laughs at that.

“Oh, isn’t this amusing. I didn’t think you were taking your duty to heart, not to this extent at least. Are you worried your husband won’t spread his legs for you if he discovers what we did to his precious friend? Not that it really matters, since we both know he couldn’t have gotten him pregnant anyway.”

The jab is weak, almost lighthearted, and razor-sharp. It freezes the complaint on Mark’s lips, turn it into poison. He can’t swallow it and he can’t spit it out. It sits in his mouth, tasting a lot like fear.

“I am the king of this palace, Mark. Nothing happens within these walls without me knowing, one way or another.”

“It was too dangerous, Donghyuck would have…”

“I don’t really care about your excuses. I was relying on you, son, the entire kingdom was relying on you. Was it too difficult? Are you that bad of an Alpha that you can’t even follow instincts properly? Or is the boy too bad of an Omega?”

Mark looks down, feeling his cheeks burn. He wants to scream that Donghyuck is perfect, perfect, and at least he likes Mark. (At least Mark was able to make his consort like him.)

“But, like I told you, it doesn’t really matter. Well, maybe it will matter to you, after tonight, but if it ever does please remember it was your own doing.”

“Would you like to explain yourself instead of talking in riddles? What will happen to Jeno Lee?”

The shadow of a smirk appears on the king’s face. He’s enjoying this so much. He takes another sip of the liquor.

“Ah, Jeno Lee. To be quite honest, I don’t care about this little lord’s life at all, but you know better than me that I cannot hurt him without also putting our country in danger. And, despite what you and a lot of other fastidious people might be thinking lately, I care about the Vale. My greatest worry is to keep my people safe, and it’s certainly more important than an act of petty revenge”

“So what will you do to him?”

“Nothing. He will go home, tomorrow. He will be escorted to the closest harbor and there he will take one of the last ships headed to the Islands before the winter storms begin. One of our soldiers will go with him to deliver two letters personally written by me, one for his father and one for his king, to explain the reasons of his banishment. Let his people decide how to punish him if they wish to.” The king gets up and walks towards the window. He looks outside, to the city of Dawyd extending its greedy arms towards the valley. His kingdom. “Deciding what to do with him was hard, but we chose to be merciful. Other than the members of my Private Council, Knight Jaehyun Jung and I - well, after tonight, you too I guess - no one else will ever get to know what he did, and all the parts involved will be able to retain their honor. Doesn’t this look merciful to you, my son?”

Mark gets up, feeling so frustrated he could scream.

“Oh, you are indeed the most merciful, father,” he growls between gritted teeth. “You’re so merciful not to kill an innocent lad after you purposefully framed just so you could prove something to me. I know you’re angry because I defied you, but did you really have to go to this extent?”

The crackling of the fire is the only sound in the room as Mark’s father walks back and sits again, inviting Mark to sit down as well. He’s eerily calm, and that aura of veiled delight that Mark had perceived from him earlier is still there, as strong and unshakable as ever. His father is enjoying this. No, even more, his father is satisfied.

“You are still a child in every aspect, Mark,” the king says with his eerie, amused smile. “You can’t even talk to me without losing your temper. And look at you, you smell like Omega in heat, and you walked all the way from your rooms to mine without a single care for propriety and decorum to barge into a private council you were not invited to and accuse me of being an unjust king. If this had happened on any other day, I would’ve had you stripped and flagged in the courtyard in front of our ministers. I would’ve taught you humility, since you clearly forgot what it is in the time it took for that boy you married to wrap his lips around your dick.”

He would have. Mark is sure, any other day he would have, but not today. What is it, wonders Mark, what is it that he has on me? Why is he so happy?

“Why are you not punishing me, then?”

“Because I don’t need to. I told you what you needed to do, I gave you my advice, at first, and then my order, as a last resort, and you stubbornly chose to ignore them both. And I don’t need to punish you because the consequences of your foolish decisions will fall on you, and you only.”

Diversion after diversion. And yet the most important question stays unanswered. What did Jeno Lee do?

“What do you mean?”

“It means that I might be a dangerous king, my son, but I wouldn’t threaten someone with death if they didn’t really do anything to deserve death. And you might not agree with me now, but I assure you that before the sun rises you will think that it is a real pity Jeno Lee is not a citizen of our country and will not have the honor of hanging from our gallows.”

Mark blinks, unable to understand the meaning of his father's words, and his father almost laughs at his confused expression. He then nods towards the table, where Mark can see some papers lying messily on the dark wood. Most of them are little notes, but there’s one envelope. It’s white, with nothing written on the top, but Mark can see long words peeking from the letter inside.

“It is true, I will not deny it, that I ordered Jaehyun to search that boy’s room in the hope he could find something incriminating, something that could allow me to send him away if I wished so. And it is true I did so to teach you a lesson. But Jaehyun found something even more interesting. A letter. Well, a series of letters. But one in particular captured our attention. You’re looking at it right now, and I would really like you to read it.”

Mark takes the envelope with shaky hands and opens it. First browsing slowly, his eyes end up tripping over the words, and towards the end his whole body is shaking so hard he can barely read. The paper crackles in his palms.

When he puts it down, back on the table, and looks up, his father is still staring at him, the shadow of a smile on his face and a glass of liquor in his hands.

“And now that you know exactly what that boy did, I must ask you, what will you do with your boy?”

 

❃

 

_If there was ever a place where I could have kissed you under the sun, I would like to return to there._

Mark has read the letter only once. Most of it is a blur, but there are sentences, there are passages, branded into his mind, ink and paper turning to iron and fire.

He read most of the messages scattered on the table. No names, just places and times. Sometimes poetry, traced in pretty italic letters on the soft paper.

_Tonight in the library. At dawn, in the music room. I’ll be waiting for you. Think of me tonight. Your lies taste like my lips, darling._

They were careful, careful. You have to be careful when playing a dangerous game, and they were playing the most dangerous game. The notes are written in elegant calligraphy, the one you can only learn from a stern teacher with a cane in his hands, ready to strike you on the knuckles if your strokes are uneven. The letter… The letter is nervous, raw in his honesty, the words slim, tall, stretched all over the page like a cry, like a confession. It was, Mark realized the moment he started reading, never meant to be delivered.

_I wasn’t expecting to want you, even after the wedding, and yet I did. And yet I did. What a fool I am. What a fool you are._

A young recruit is keeping guard at the base of the guest wing of the palace. Mark has met him a few times, watched him swing a pike around the training courtyard. The boy’s eyes widen when he sees Mark approaching him. He takes a step forward, as to stop the prince from walking past him, but then he feels the storm surrounding Mark and stutters, legs wobbling. He’s a smart boy. He steps aside, letting Mark pass like you let an avalanche pass - just trying not to get swept away, just trying not to get crushed to death.

“Where is Lord Jeno’s room?” Mark asks.

“The king has put him in isolation, Your Highness.”

“I asked you where it is.”

“His rooms are on the second floor, you’ll see the knights guarding his door. But, Your Highness…” The guard - the boy, Goddess, he looks so young - fidgets. “Are you here for the Prince Consort?”

Mark blinks. “Excuse me?”

_These months have been like a dream, and yet it is time to wake up._

“The Prince Consort, he… He came here a few minutes before you did. He said you gave him permission to come. We couldn’t tell him no, but he was…”

He was in his heat, maybe the last days of it, but he was still in his heat. And he went outside, alone. He went to see Jeno.

_I worried every night we would get caught, and I hoped it with all my heart at the same time. Let them know. Let them know._

And if Mark was furious before, now he’s outright murderous. He can feel Donghyuck, he was always able to feel Donghyuck, a maddening echo at the edge of his mind, but now his presence hits him like a hammer hits a nail, almost painful in his proximity. Donghyuck is only a few walls away, and he’s in his heat. And he’s with Jeno.

And Mark talked to Jaehyun, Jaehyun who was waiting for him outside the king’s chambers, Jaehyun who was so eager to explain, so eager to say he was sorry - not an apology, merely an admission of pity.

(“They were always together, even while you were here. But after you left, Donghyuck barely left his side. And it was… it was inappropriate. That’s why your father told him to search his room. And I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Mark.”)

And that’s what they all must be feeling, right? Pity. Because Mark believed it. Mark thought it could happen, that no matter how dire and difficult the journey is, they would meet at the end. And yet, were they even going in the same direction?

He skips the steps in long strides, doesn’t even see them.

(There’s a memory, shining in Mark’s mind, a memory of the last day of summer. Golden flowers. A blue sky. Sunlight dripping like nectar through the leaves of the giant tree next to the stream, drawing flowers of gold on Jeno’s dark hair.

“Donghyuck really likes flowers, you know?”

No, Mark didn’t know, but Jeno did. Jeno always knew too much, and Mark never knew enough.

“He’s not going to seduce Donghyuck at all. No one can. No offence, Your Majesty. Donghyuck is not the kind of boy who gets crushes on annoying princes, you see.”

Is this what he meant? Is this what Mark signed himself for?)

The knights bow to the Crown Prince. They never do, but Mark cannot even imagine how he looks like. A madman maybe. A wounded man.

_I’m tired of hiding in the darkness. I’m tired of doing things in secret, like a criminal._

“How long has he been in there?” he asks, and they exchange worried glances.

“He arrived right before you do, Your Highness.”

“Was he alone?”

“Yes, but…”

And why the hell would an Omega who belongs to the royal family be allowed to be on his own? They look down, unsure of what to say. They’re all young, only knighted a few months ago. Mark was the one who knighted them, and yet none of them is close with Mark. If only Hendery had been there, or Hongwon. They would have never let their prince’s mate, obviously in heat, in the room of a suspected criminal, alone. But these boys are young and unsure and Donghyuck can be a persuasive little minx, when he wants to. They will be banished, the king will make sure of it, and the weight of it will fall on Donghyuck.

_As much as I long for you, we cannot be together, you and I. You are a prince, and you will forever be a prince, but I will never be one. And yet, what you gave me, although not enough, was way more than I deserved._

Oh, a lot of things will fall upon Donghyuck, after tonight. Mark’s fury will only be the first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't ask me what happens in the next chapter because it's a spoiler and I cannot tell you.  
> You're free to tell me what you think will happen though ❤


	20. xx. or you love some man more than me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The notes are spoiler-ish but contain important warnings so skip at your own risk. There's going to be additional notes at the end. Please read those when you finish the chapter.  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> -Please, before you read this chapter, make sure you have read the tags very well. I tagged angst, I tagged power imbalance (edit: I also tagged power authority and unhealthy relationships in relation to this chapter). Especially power imbalance is something that you have seen throughout the whole fic but is especially prominent during this chapter. There is a scene of power abuse and breach of consent in a non-sexual context (but NO sexual assault or sexual non-con). Please approach the scene responsibly.  
> -Mark is not only an unreliable narrator, he's also ben through a lot in the past few days. He had a long journey throughout the kingdom and immediately after that he spent three days physically exerting himself, not even sleeping because he was taking care of Donghyuck and making sure he was okay. Please cut him some slack if you can. He deserves it. Same goes for Donghyuck.  
> -This is the angstiest thing I've plotted for this fic, and it wasn't easy to write for me. If I did my job well, it should hurt. But think about it this way: if this is the worst I guess things can only get better from now on. Ahah.  
> -So many of you commented ;; I have only begun tackling comments for chapter 19 because for most of them the answer would have been a spoiler, but thank you so much for even the smallest comment. You're amazing ;;  
> -Don't hate me for this chapter or I'll be sad ;;
> 
>  
> 
> \- title inspiration comes from Fragment 129 from Sappho translated by Anne Carson  
> \- the songs for this chapter are Bad Decisions by Bastille, Empty Gold by Halsey and Impossible by James Arthur for the ending. [Here](https://twitter.com/aprilclaws/status/1156324062047670272) you can find the playlist, I'd highly recommend you to pay attention to the lyrics if you decide to listen.

Donghyuck doesn’t understand, not immediately, but that’s only the second detail Mark notices about him. The first is that Donghyuck is crying.

It’s such a cruel irony to think about, that of all the inconsiderate, careless things Donghyuck did, this is what ultimately hits Mark like a dagger in the back. Donghyuck only ever cries around Mark when he’s in pain, or cornered, always when he’s at his limit. This Donghyuck, the same Donghyuck - is it really the same Donghyuck? - crying on Jeno’s shoulder, on the embroidered velvet of Jeno’s vest, the beige rapidly turning brown under his tears, this Donghyuck who has Jeno’s hands carded in his hair, who can barely breathe through his hiccups, who curls up in Jeno’s arms, winds his own tight around his back, Mark looks at him and he can’t, _he can’t._ Like their wedding night, like when they were kids and Donghyuck demanded to be let into the tree house. And Mark might be hesitant, he might be careful and understanding and patient, but when his heart makes a decision, it clicks like a tiny cog setting into place, and the whole wheel start whirring, crackling, and there’s no way to stop it other than breaking it all.

Donghyuck looks up when Mark enters, and he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t see Mark’s whole essence shifting, reshaped by anger in the same way metal is shaped by fire in the womb of the furnace. He doesn’t even realize that Mark is angry, how much he’s angry. He can’t. His own pain is screaming right now, too raw, too hoarse, soaring through the bond, and it’s so loud, so out of bounds, that he can’t perceive Mark’s feelings at all. If he did, he wouldn’t turn around, his face tear-streaked, lashes clumping together and shining wetly in the light of the candle on the table. If he did, he wouldn’t come close to Mark. (If he could feel what Mark is feeling, close to Mark is the last place where he’d want to be.) And yet, this Donghyuck, unlike the Donghyuck Mark has made love to, is blind, and deaf, and so, so naive. The smartest mind of the kingdom, and the quickest arrow, and the prettiest face probably, and the most tender heart. Sadly, at the end it’s the heart that drags him down.

Donghyuck takes a step towards Mark, and he’s devastated. He looks like he cares. Like he really cares. And Mark hadn’t realized - Mark has never seen him like this, and only now that he has he can understand - how guarded Donghyuck always is around him, and how little, in comparison, he cares, when it’s about him. Donghyuck never cried like this for him, in front of him.

“Mark.”

Donghyuck’s touch burns. His hands barely brush against Mark’s elbows, and yet, it burns. (And Mark still feels like he’s being remade. Except maybe it’s not his anger, maybe Donghyuck is the fire.)

“Can’t you,” Donghyuck says, and his voice is wet and lumpy, crumpling in his throat, too liquid to make it out of his mouth. Another tear falls and Donghyuck rubs it away - even now, even now he doesn’t want to cry in front of Mark. He tries again, sounding even worse than before. “Can’t you do anything about it?”

Mark’s eyes meet Jeno’s. He feels like a fool. His father was right, if he could, if he had any saying into it, Jeno would probably lose his head.

“No.” Mark doesn’t know who’s talking. He can barely recognize his own voice. Donghyuck can’t either, because he looks up at him, eyes shining with tears he’s shedding for another man. He looks betrayed. Mark can see himself, his own face, reflected in Donghyuck’s big eyes. Donghyuck is mirroring Mark’s own expression.

(A thought flickers in his head, like a small light in the darkness. Did they betray each other?

 _No,_ Mark tells himself, blowing that tiny flame with a single breath. _Donghyuck betrayed you. That’s what he did._ )

“Lord Jeno, a knight of our kingdom will be waiting outside for you in a few hours,” says the foreign voice that keeps coming out of Mark’s mouth. “He will take you to the closest harbor, where a ship for the Islands will be awaiting you.”

Jeno blinks, confused.

“But I… They didn’t even tell me…”

“I didn’t ask you to talk. In fact, I don’t want to hear anything you say at all. You’ve been banished, and you shall be grateful for it. It could’ve been a lot worse, all things considered. You will leave this kingdom before the end of the day and if the Goddess helps us you will never come back again.”

Donghyuck lets out a small exhale, and his face starts twisting, from betrayed, to angry, to panicked, all at the same time. He tries to take a step back, but Mark’s hand closes on his wrist, and that’s when Donghyuck starts to realize, as the direct physical contact unleashes the full power of Mark’s rage between them, what is really happening.

“We,” Mark says, with the voice that doesn’t belong to him, “are leaving.”

“Wait, no, wait, Mark.”

Mark doesn’t listen. As much as Donghyuck tries to pull back, he’s still weak, dehydrated and tired from spending the past few days in a frenzy. His skin feels warm to the touch, but he’s shivering and he has no strength at all. Mark doesn’t have to make any effort to drag him outside. He doesn’t turn to say goodbye to Jeno - is Jeno even worthy of a farewell at this point? Mark doesn't really care if his ship sinks - and when Donghyuck tries to break free to go back and see Jeno’s face for the last time Mark just shuts the door in his face.

“Let me go! He’s leaving, your father is making him fucking leave and I… You’re not going to do anything, do you? You’re just going to… let my fucking best friend be exiled like that for one of your stupid Vale power games and you won’t even let me say goodbye to him?”

Mark lets him go and, predictably, Donghyuck tries to turn around and go back inside. It’s so easy to spin him around like a ragdoll, taking in the surprise painting his face -flushed and sweaty and beautiful, still wrapped in the last tendrils of heat - and watch it turn into shock as Mark roughly slams him against the wall.

“And why did my father arrest Jeno, hm, Donghyuck? You’re so good at picking up secrets, but you didn’t hear about this one, did you?”

“What is wrong with you?”

Donghyuck tries to push him away, and Mark slams him down again, harder.

“Why don’t you tell me what the fuck you think you’re doing, because the last time I checked you didn’t even have the right to walk around on your own, let alone during your heat.” Mark’s voice is lower than a whisper, and yet the silence around them is so sharp that it carries the sound like it’s deafening. It’s a silence made of broken glass, a silence that hones words like daggers and pierces through them like a blade slashes through tender meat.

“You expected me to stay in my room and just let you people take my best friend away? Fucking let me go, I don’t care how you punish me later, I will talk to him.”

“No, you won’t.”

“And how will you keep me from doing that? Will you drag me back to my rooms? I’ll scream, I’ll scream all the way back, the whole palace will know what kind of sick pervert you are and…”

Mark puts a finger to Donghyuck’s mouth. “No, you won’t,” he repeats. “You know why? Because my father could have had Jeno hanged tomorrow instead of sent home tonight.”

And it’s not Mark’s voice, it’s a lie, it’s a lie, and yet it feels so satisfying to say it, and to see Donghyuck draw a raspy breath, like a hiccup of fear. The tears have dried on his cheeks, leaving behind trails of salt on the soft skin. He looks scared. He looks angry. And maybe those are the only feelings Mark can cause in him, the only way he can get Donghyuck to listen to him.

“Now, do you want to come back with me or do you want to endanger your friend even more?”

There’s silence for a moment.

“You could let me see him. Just for a moment.”

 _You could beg,_ thinks Mark. _I could ask you to beg._ But then what would happen if Donghyuck begged him for real? Mark doesn’t know if his pride can stand the blow of his conceited mate begging him for permission to see another man. Donghyuck would never beg to see him.

“I could,” he says, “but I won’t. Now follow me. In silence. I don’t want to hear a single word from you until you’re back into our room. And when we’re there, you will only answer my questions. Do you understand Donghyuck? Nod if you do, or I swear on the Goddess, alliance or not nothing will stop your friend from hanging in the courtyard tomorrow. Do you understand?”

Donghyuck nods. It’s not fear, the feeling that mars his features. It’s not fear as much as it’s anger. Well, Mark has enough of that on his own. It suits him. It suits them both. If it can’t be fear, let it be anger.

 

❃

 

The guards have the common sense not to say anything when they walk back, but they can’t help but stare at the sight of Mark dragging Donghyuck like an unruly child and not like the prince he is. Mark’s hold on his husband’s left wrist is unkind and it will leave bruises, but Donghyuck pointedly chooses not to complain. Mark tightens his fingers even more in retaliation and pretends he doesn’t see the way Donghyuck bites his bottom lip to keep himself from whimpering.

_But you have held my hand in the darkness. You have kissed my loneliness away._

The letter, the stupid letter, gnaws at Mark’s attempts to calm down. He holds tighter, and only lets Donghyuck go when the door of their room has been locked, when no one can listen to them anymore. Donghyuck crumples to the ground, almost like a puppet without wires, but he gets up almost immediately, springing to his feet with his teeth bared, haunted.

“Are you out of your mind?” he asks, speaking first even though Mark had told him to only answer his questions. (Donghyuck never, ever listens. It can be endearing, but right now it only adds to the tightness that’s growing in Mark’s chest, barely controlled, threatening to overspill.)

Mark ignores the question. He turns the key in the keyhole until it refuses to move forward and then throws it against the wall. It hits the stone and falls on the floor, clinks three times before it stops. If it startles Donghyuck, he doesn’t show it. (It startles Mark, though. His hands are shaking and he balls them into fists, to hide them from Donghyuck.)

“Aren’t you going to tell me why you suddenly decided to turn into the biggest asshole in the world?” Donghyuck asks, his words slipping on each other, biting, careless.

Mark glares at him, taking in the way his hands squirm at his side, looking for the comfort of a missing weapon to thrust into Mark’s heart, the shape of his jaw when he holds his head high and proud, and, despite the strong facade, the slight tremble of his lips.

“I will ask you one thing, Donghyuck.” He drives his nails into the soft flesh of his palm, but the pain only grounds his voice and spurs on everything else. “And I want you to answer honestly.”

There are still faint traces of tears on Donghyuck’s face. Mark could taste them if he were to kiss him. He doesn’t want to kiss Donghyuck. He wants to bite him until he bleeds, on the delicate curve of his throat, now jumping faintly as he swallows.

“Then ask.”

“Did you cheat on me with Jeno?”

Donghyuck sucks in a sharp breath, his eyebrows furrowing in a confused frown. For a moment, he looks at Mark but past him, like he can barely register his presence. Then, he lets out a bitter, small chuckle.

“Is this what this whole mess is about?” he asks, his eyes narrowing in ill-concealed disbelief. “You think… You think I… You _know_ Jeno is my best friend!”

“Is he _only_ your best friend?”

Donghyuck’s whole face flushes, and this time it’s in rage more than heat.

“Ah,” he exhales, “ah, really. You’re being ridiculous now.”

_Isn’t it ridiculous, to harbor these feelings. I wish I was born a prince, so that I could be your equal. I wish I was born a prince, so that you could look at me._

The letter replays in Mark’s head, cruelly nitid, Jeno’s words chasing each other in a miserable loop.

“Is he?” Mark chuckles bitterly and Donghyuck winces and shakes his head.

“You’re really overdoing yourself tonight, aren’t you? Yes, he is only my best friend. And I didn’t cheat on you with him.”

“Then explain to me, Donghyuck, why Jaehyun found a letter in Jeno’s room. A letter addressed to his lover, with whom he apparently entertained quite a long secret relationship during the past months. A lover who, by his admission, has royal blood. Explain it to me, Donghyuck, because I want to hear it from your mouth, whether you lied to me all these months. I think I deserve that, at least.”

And, as fast as he had exploded, Donghyuck deflates. Mark can see his chest rising and falling under the vest as he breathes deeply, still bearing the shape of Mark’s mouth in bruised colors. He was in such a hurry to see Jeno that he barely dressed before he left. And Mark is so angry he’s struggling to keep his body whole, his skin and bones and flesh threatening to give up if he allows that dense ball of rage in his stomach unravel. So he waits, he waits because he deserves this, at least, he deserves to hear it from Donghyuck, doesn’t he? He waits and watches Donghyuck think.

 _Yes, I know about the letter,_ he thinks, not without a pange of bitter smugness. _And I’m curious, sunshine, so curious, to the point that it might be the only thing keeping me whole, about how exactly you’re going to try and talk your way out of this._

“I didn’t lie to you,” Donghyuck says, after a minute of careful thinking. “That letter really wasn’t for me.”

_It’s too dangerous. And it’s not right. It’s never been right. As much as I enjoyed the comfort of your company, the warmth of your body, we have to stop._

Mark cannot see his face, but of course Donghyuck wouldn’t look at him while he lies, like this, to his face. Oh, isn’t he shameless. Mark always thought Donghyuck was a bad liar, one of those people who wear the truth on his face, all the time, and yet…

(All those times Mark caught them, Donghyuck leaning into Jeno, their foreheads almost touching, an inside joke to be shared only between the two of them. Jeno, who helped Donghyuck with his heat. Jeno, who followed Donghyuck to this cold and harsh land. Jeno, who will leave tomorrow, and will not come back, and Donghyuck, who will never leave the Vale, will never see him again in this lifetime.)

Yet, in the end, Donghyuck was the best liar of them all.

“You don’t seem surprised,” Mark muses, pushing back his anger, the need to scream, to find a calm in him he didn’t know it still existed. And it still doesn’t sound like him. It sounds - he sounds - oddly familiar though. With a shiver, Mark realizes he sounds like his father, that hint of fake disinterest, the undertone of cruel satisfaction. For a moment he’s disgusted, for a moment he’s proud. “I guess you knew about the letter. You’re not making it easy for me to believe you.”

“Well, you’re not making it easy either. Who do you think you are, Mark? You asked for the truth, I told you the truth, now let me go back. I need to talk to my best friend for the last time, because apparently he’s going to leave tomorrow…”

He tries to walk past Mark, and Mark pushes him back.

“You don’t understand, do you? You think this is a joke, Donghyuck? Let’s see how much I can push Mark until he fucking explodes? Because then the answer is now, the answer is fucking now! I’m tired of your games and your lies, I’m tired of your deceptions… I’m tired of you leading me on. If Jeno Lee hadn’t been a foreigner he would’ve died, and you’re here treating everything like it’s a giant big game you can just put back in the box when you’re tired. Do you think my feelings aren’t worthy of your attention?”

Donghyuck’s lips tighten into a fine line. That’s it, finally, the boy who is a blade without a hilt, the boy who hurts you no matter which end you choose to take him from. The boy who can kill you with a handful of words. No matter how much he tries to hide under golden glitter and Mark’s fur pelts, no matter how much he’s pretend he’s a heat dumb lost Omega, he’s still there. Still as sharp.

“I think you, right now, aren’t worthy of my attention.”

It hurts, but Mark was expecting it. He was already hurt, and so badly this jab merely drowns in the pain bleeding through him.

“Who’s Jeno’s secret lover?” he asks, and he can see the corner of Donghyuck’s lips lifting. A smile, a challenge.

“Fuck you, Your Highness.”

The bond shakes between them, pulled taut, like it’s strangling them, a rope in a game of tug-of-war. And Mark has the upper-hand, he’s always had the upper-hand. He just never wanted to use it, and for what? The foolish hope that Donghyuck would like him? That gentleness, that care, would work with someone who used to beat Mark into the ground with a stick for fun when they were young? _Is this what you wanted all along?_ Mark thinks, looking at Donghyuck. _You don’t want my love, darling? Then let’s see if you like the person I can be to someone I don’t love. Two can play this game._

“I would rather fuck you, and stay assured I will. After all, I have every right to.” It hurts, to say that, but it hurts Donghyuck more and Mark doesn’t regret it one bit. “But let things be clear between us first. So you’re not the one partaking in… whatever it is that happened here, in my palace, under my fucking eyes… with Lord Jeno. It wasn’t you, you say. But you won’t tell me who it is. Who could it be, if not you?”

“Your fucking mother,” Donghyuck says, and Mark almost hits him. He knows that’s what Donghyuck wants. He knows the moment he raises a hand on Donghyuck, it will be over. They both look at each other, their eyes locked on Mark’s hand, raised mid-air between them.

“Do that,” Donghyuck hisses. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“Is Jeno so important that you’re willing to get beaten for him? Rather than telling me the truth?”

“Oh, but do you deserve the truth? Do you deserve to hear it from me?” Donghyuck closes the distance between them, he’s shaking, shaking, shaking. Mark’s hands, still raised in that aborted slap, brushes the side of his face. It’s almost languid. It could have been a caress, if Donghyuck had leaned into it. “I have already told you the truth, you just don’t believe me. All those words, all those pretty words about love and trust, and about how you were going to take the fall for me too… I told you. In the end, it’s just empty words. You don’t trust me, you don’t love me, you don’t know anything. And you won’t know anything from me either. I’m tired. I’ll go back to sleep.”

“So you’re not going to tell me? You expect me to believe you when-”

“I don’t expect anything from you, Mark. I never did and I never will.” Donghyuck carefully sits on the edge of the bed. Their clothes are still thrown on the floor, intertwined. The sheets smells like the both of them, having sex. Mark wants to smother him against them. He wishes he had never left that bed.

Donghyuck only looks up after he has schooled his expression into a mask that doesn’t show anger nor sadness. Like Mark is not even worthy of seeing his feelings.

“Jeno will leave at dawn,” he murmurs. He looks at Mark’s eyes as he says it, but then his gaze flickers down again, at his knees. “He’s my best friend, you know it very well. He’s also my only friend here, the only connection I had with my home, the only person who could speak my language. And he was sent away because the Goddess forbid I had a single person in this place who was on my side without asking anything back from me. You didn’t even let me say goodbye because you’re so wrapped up in the lies your father has told you that you’d rather believe a piece of paper than me. And you talk about trust. Well, I don’t trust you with my secrets either. Go on, hit me if you want. You’ll get nothing from me.”

He doesn’t look up again, but his shoulders crumple slightly. He’s hurt, he must be so hurt - so hurt he cried, but not in front of Mark, not for Mark. To Mark, Donghyuck only shows his ragged edges, his crests, his pointy claws. And now not even that. Like he’s not even worth a fight, like he’s not worth rage, or hatred, or the fury of a battlefield. Like he’s not worthy.

But Mark has never been worthy in Donghyuck’s eyes, hasn’t he? No matter what he does, no matter how much he loves or trusts Donghyuck, no matter how hard he tries. Donghyuck always goes to great lengths to remind Mark of the gaping chasm between them, it’s not love, _it’s not love_. And yes, sometimes it looks like it might be, but Donghyuck builds that bridge only to burn it when it’s more convenient for him, when he needs to put Mark back into his place. It’s not love, he says. You’re a fool, he says. And maybe Mark is a fool. His shoulders spasm under the weight of everything he has to carry - because, like a fool, he told Donghyuck he would be able to love for him too, and he wasn’t, he wasn’t strong enough, or maybe he just wasn’t supposed to.

(And yet, not being loved is something Mark could have accepted, if he could just have Donghyuck when no one else could. Even if it wasn’t love, even if it hurt - even if it still hurts. But this, knowing Donghyuck was kissing someone else’s lips, holding someone else’s hands, being given the crumbs of a relationship when someone else was having it all, this pain is relentless and methodic and inevitable. It eats at Mark’s rationality, like an ancient hunger, like a faceless monster that feeds from his liver, and Mark feels rabid, he feels restless, and the bond closes around his neck like a noose. Mark needs to pull back before it chokes him to death. If it’s him or Donghyuck, let Donghyuck choke on his own lies. Let them burn the roof of his mouth. Mark can make that happen. He’s the Alpha, isn’t he?)

He’s not thinking, really, just relying on basic, raw need, when his hands curl around Donghyuck’s shoulder and push him down on the bed. There’s something liberating in letting everything go - what is right, what is good, what is proper - and allowing instinct to take over. The bond bristles between them as they fall together in a heap of tangled limbs, and Donghyuck yelps and squirms under Mark’s weight. Fear trickles through his skin into Mark’s, and it’s not the fear he felt for Jeno, the fear of losing someone, this is fear of Mark.

“What are you doing?” he hisses, trying to get Mark off him, but Mark scrapes at the mating bite on his shoulder and Donghyuck goes lax under his hold, his biology taking over, leaving him like putty in the hands of his Alpha.

Mark’s hand lingers on the bite. He presses his fingers there forcefully, almost digging against the ragged edge of the scar as the bond thickens between them, making Donghyuck squirm where he’s pinned against the sheets by Mark’s weight.

“What are you doing?” he repeats, and he sounds terrified.

“I’m sorry,” Mark says. “I really am. But I need to know. This is not something I can let go. You were right. At the end of the day, you were always right. I don’t trust you. I don’t think I can, for you’ve never given me any reason to. But this is not only about us, it’s never been only about us. You’re the consort of the future king of this nation… And I need to know this, whether you want to tell me or not.”

Donghyuck’s fear is acute, like a single note resonating in the silence, the last note at the end of the harp.

“No,” he murmurs, “you can’t, you can’t do that.”

He thrashes under Mark’s hold, trying to dislodge Mark, to no avail.

“You can’t,” he repeats, frantically, “I’ll never forgive you if you do that.”

“Well, we seem to be in quite a predicament, Donghyuck. I don’t think I will ever forgive you if I don’t.”

“I swore,” Donghyuck is shaking right now. “I swore an oath to Jeno, that I would never tell anyone. This secret is not mine to tell. Please, Mark, please. Don’t make me say it.”

Mark shushes him, one hand on his nape. It curls, almost tenderly, scratching at the roots of Donghyuck’s hair.

“Did you fuck Jeno, Donghyuck?” Mark asks, and the weight of the question crushes Donghyuck. He’s still in his heat, even though it’s faint and weak, and Mark is his Alpha, and there’s no way for him to escape the bond, pressed against his skin, flowing into every single molecule of his body.

“I didn’t,” he answers, in a breath, and Mark’s fingers circle his neck, coming to rest against his throat.

“Good boy. Then who did?”

“Mark, please, please. I’m begging you, I promised, I swore, he’s my best friend and I owe him…”

“You owe me too, Donghyuck. I’m your husband, and your Alpha, and your prince, and you owe me your loyalty. You swore in front of the Goddess. That, too, was an oath. One you took willingly. Who shared Jeno’s bed?”

It is a testament to Donghyuck’s strong will how much he’s able to resist, even with his Alpha unleashing his full authority on him. Donghyuck’s body goes tense as he tries to fight. He claws at the sheets, groans low in his throat. Mark lets him fight it until he’s too tired to fight anymore.

Then, with the tiniest voice Mark has ever heard coming from him, Donghyuck whispers, “Prince Jaemin of the Na Empire.”

Mark feels Donghyuck’s body sag down on the sheets as soon as he's finished talking, crushed by the weight of what he’s done.

“Jaemin? He wouldn’t…”

“He would. He did. You know I can’t lie, not now.” Donghyuck chokes back a sob and turns it into a sad laugh. “And what do you want to do with this information, Mark? If you tell someone, Jeno will be exiled from the Islands too. He will lose his title, his land, his betrothed. He will lose everything. Jeno always had everything to lose from his arrangement with Prince Jaemin, and that’s why I swore to protect this secret with my life. Thanks to you, now I’m a perjurer.” Donghyuck sniffles, hiding his face in the pillow. “You had what you wanted, now let me go.”

Mark hesitates. Donghyuck is shaking under him, like a wounded animal, in pain. What Mark did, the way Mark got this secret from him, could not be judged by any jury. It is not a crime, between mates, for an Alpha to force their Omega to do something. And yet, there will be no coming back from this. Mark knows, as he finally sobers up, that Donghyuck will not forgive him.

“Who was your first love?” Mark asks and Donghyuck’s body twists under his.

“No, you had your answer. Let me go, Mark.”

“I can’t. You’ll never tell me.”

Donghyuck sobs. “It is not in your right to know. This belongs to me, you can’t have it.”

Mark was not expecting the sudden surge of anger and pain coursing through Donghyuck’s body. He falls back, barely avoiding being kneed in the balls, and he’s so surprised Donghyuck almost slips through his hold. He pins him down, again, and Donghyuck fights back this time, twisting and pulling and biting and screaming, and Mark almost lets him go. Almost.

“Tell me,” he says, when he has him secured. “You will hate me anyway. At least this time you will have a good reason to do it.”

“I can’t, please.”

Donghyuck is crying right now. He’s so warm, so desperate.

 _Let go,_ Mark thinks, as he leans down until his mouth brushes against the mating mark in a way that makes Donghyuck keen. _Tell me. If I can’t love you, at least give me someone to hate._

“Who’s your first love, Donghyuck of the Southern Islands?”

And Donghyuck clenches, his hands balled into fists, his face hidden in the pillow. A sob shakes his chest, his whole body curling up against Mark’s as the heat of pheromones turns thicker, and the sweetness of his smell surges, cloying, almost poisonous. Mark leans down, so that his mouth is tickling against Donghyuck’s cheek, and the bond stretches between them at his gesture, pulled even tauter as they get closer, on the verge of snapping irremediably.

“You’re so stupid,” Donghyuck says, and his words are muddy, drowned in the tears sliding down his throat, down his nose, down his neck like pretty diamonds, Mark can feel them on his fingers. “I’ve never loved anyone but you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, before everything else is said, I want to say the biggest thank you to ao3 user jenuyu who has been waiting for me to write this chapter so she could publish the nomin spinoff she's writing for me without spoiling things too much for you all. (Still, if you had read the first chapter, it was pretty easy to guess where things were going. Not that it made anything less painful ig, ahah. Mark didn't read the spinoff and got angry regardless, ahah.)  
> If you haven't read it, the spinoff will focus on what happened between Jeno and Jaemin from the wedding to Jaemin's departure. Jenuyu-nim had most of the fic ready for months, but Honeymouthed got longer and longer and I made her wait so much ;; thank you for your patience and your words of encouragement and for the screams every time I sent you a snippet Meg ;;
> 
> EDIT: this will probably be discussed in the next chapter as well, but I think it's important to confirm it now. What Mark did was very very bad. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, I think what he did was toxic and entitled and dangerous. But this is a/b/o and there are rules to follow. What Donghyuck did, meeting another Alpha during his heat and refusing to give any explanation, is justified by the way he was feeling maybe, but it's still one of the most insulting and humiliating things he could've done to Mark. Both of them were caught in a situation in which they were extremely stressed, tired and on the edge and they both reacted poorly to it. Many readers have said that there is no way they can come back from this, and in fact they will not go back, because their previous relationship was terrible as well and going back to it would be a terrible idea.
> 
> Coming soon: something that will make everyone happy for once. Please anticipate.
> 
> (Also I lied if I receive hate I won't be sad, I'm simply gonna time-skip and never explain what Donghyuck meant. Don't try me.)


	21. xxi. as in the night is without light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quick quick notes  
> \- i hope everyone survived, if you didn't you'll have a lot of time to recover bc next month will be hell for me, i have presentations and final papers and my keyboard broke and i don't know when i'll be able to update again, please don't ask me ;; it's going to be really busy ;;  
> \- this chapter is shorter than usual and it was supposed to contain another scene but i couldn't finish it. i polled on twitter and the majority chose a short chapter today over a long chapter in december so this is what i can give you now.  
> \- there is no playlist update because i didn't have time to prepare one, i'll see if i can update these notes in the next few days ;; also bc of keyboard problems there might be more typos than usual ;; i'm sorry  
> \- if you have any tagging concerns you can cc me or mention me but if it's something other people have already asked me i won't answer fully bc as i said i'll be super busy  
> \- i'll reply all the comments in thee future, i promise, but i have readings to finish for tomorrow so it was either updating or replying the comments. i still wish i could thank you personally, but for now thank you all ily <3
> 
>  
> 
> \- [chapter title inspiration](https://avolitorial.tumblr.com/post/171398152982/bracketed-from-translation-by-anne-carson)  
> 

The bond doesn’t break, but it snaps when Mark lets go, like a rubber band cracking back into place, whipping Mark on its way back. It hits deep within his chest, bypassing skin, flesh and blood, touching something inside Mark that shouldn’t have a solid form, something that is not supposed to be touched, and it sparks physical pain in its wake even though the bond is anything but physical. It’s like having your heart pierced, an acute, sharp ache in the middle of Mark’s chest, silvery-white and crackling like thunder at dusk.

Mark stumbles back, slumping on the bed next to Donghyuck, one hand clutching at his chest, the other gripping the sheets as if afraid they are going to disappear beneath him, as if there was somewhere deeper to fall into if he didn’t hold on. He can hear Donghyuck gasp against the knot of panic in his throat, struggling to breathe and shaking, unable to hold himself up as the power game between them was abruptly severed when Mark let go.

They spend this moment just lying there, unable to breathe. And, for this moment, being alive hurts. Mark can feel Donghyuck’s pain and Donghyuck can feel his pain, a mirror within a mirror. Their feelings reflect on each other, bouncing back and forth between them, stronger and stronger, creating endless ghost corridors of agony, concealing the way out of the maze of hurt they have created.

And yet mirrors are not always lying. They can be revealing too, and reality suddenly dawns on Mark, staring at him through the looking glass of Donghyuck’s feelings. He closes his eyes, struggling to delete its image, but like light it filters through his eyelids, through his lashes. It's pale and cold and eerie, like winter sunlight peeking through the morning fog of his rage. (And his rage might still be strong, but this pain, Donghyuck’s pain braided with his own, is stronger, strong enough to clear up his mind. It makes it difficult to breathe but easier to think, and yet Mark loathes it because being lucid means having to face what he did, the shame of it.)

Donghyuck is still crying, like he’s never cried in front of Mark.

_You wanted him to trust you enough to cry in front of you, but now he’s just crying because of you. Are you happy?_

Oh, Mark is not sure he knows what happiness is anymore. It's like he broke the word too when he broke Donghyuck.

Mark wishes to touch him, to comfort him - to soothe his fears away, collect his tears one by one, kiss his brow lightly, delicately, a kiss like a dove's flight. Donghyuck is Mark’s Omega, and instinct tells Mark to protect him, but instinct also told Mark to hurt him, to crush him until he broke and then remake him, anew, just like Mark wanted him. (And, isn’t it silly, Mark didn’t want to remake him, Mark just wanted him.)

He tries to extend his hand nevertheless, but he stops halfway when he feels Donghyuck’s repulsion, the way he shrieks through the bond when Mark squirms closer to him, unconsciously trying to crawl away from the gesture without even seeing it.

Mark inhales sharply and looks away. It’s the first time, since they became mates, that Donghyuck rejects his touch. Not even in the beginning, when they hated each other, when Donghyuck had asked for this treatment, he had been afraid of Mark’s touch.

It is not undeserved, but it wounds Mark nevertheless. He sniffles, and wetness drips down his neck. He wipes harshly at his face - he has no right to cry, not him, _not him_ \- only to find out that what he thought were tears is actually blood, flowing freely from his nose, down his jaw and collarbones and his chest. He doesn’t know if it happened during his scuffle with Donghyuck or if it’s merely a consequence of exerting his power over his mate in such a forceful, shameful way. He's feeling too much to be able to separate the sources of the pain. He should get up and clean it, he reasons. He should do something, anything, even if he doesn’t know what to do.

But the moment he tries to get up and step away from Donghyuck, the boy lets out a pained squeak, his breaths growing faster and more panicked. He blindly looks for Mark’s body and he only breathes properly again when Mark comes back to sit next to him.

Even now, Mark realizes, even now Donghyuck’s biology betrays him. He hates Mark, he must hate Mark so much for what he did to him - and it’s just beginning to dawn on Mark, trickling into him through their bond, the vastity of the pain he inflicted on Donghyuck. It’s like trying to drink the sea with a liquor glass, in small sips, until you’re full and you realize you haven’t even started - the ocean is endless, enough to drown in it. If there was a way to measure how Donghyuck must hate Mark, maybe the sea would be enough. And yet, as an Omega still in heat, even in the last moment of this cursed heat, he craves for his Alpha’s presence. He doesn’t want Mark there, he probably doesn’t want Mark at all, but, ironically, if Mark left it would hurt him even more.

It’s Donghyuck who finally finds Mark’s hand and clasps it, brings it to his heart, and the contact opens the connection between them again, too soon, too fast, when it’s still bleeding and jagged and raw, like sticking a finger into an open wound - Donghyuck’s wound, still dripping into Mark’s mind. Mark almost scream from the intensity of it, but doesn’t dare to pull his hand back. He lets Donghyuck get at least this little comfort, even if it comes at the price of having to feel everything Donghyuck is feeling. (All that naked pain, all that naked shame, all that naked despair. Mark receives them all, along with the guilt of having been the one to cause them.) Donghyuck just holds onto his hand, doesn’t let go.

The wind sweeps the streets, raising clouds of dust, throwing dry leaves at the stone walls of the palace like it wants them to collapse and hurling curses at them when they don't, and Donghyuck’s raspy breaths calm down until the only sound that comes from him is the rustling of the sheets as he shivers against them and the tiny voice he used to tell Mark everything he wanted to know.

“Let me go home,” he says, “please.”

The words fade into silence, and yet a negative of them lingers, like a ghost of the way they sounded, inside Mark’s head. Mark closes his eyes, squeezes them so hard they hurt like the rest of him. The blood has gotten in his mouth. It tastes strange, metallic.

“I don’t care if you have to blame me,” Donghyuck continues. He’s begging. He sounds defeated. “I don’t care if my honor is destroyed, I can’t do this anymore. I want to go home.”

Mark has no answer for him. He promised, one day, that he would let Donghyuck go if everything became too much. It’s already too much, and yet Donghyuck cannot go. Winter is already upon them, and the last ship for the Islands will sail in a few hours. It will take Jeno home. But Donghyuck is not allowed to go home, not now, not ever, not if they want the alliance to survive. (Mark would tell him, except Donghyuck already knows. He knows Mark can’t let him go, and that only makes him cry harder.)

Mark disentangles his fingers from Donghyuck’s, watches him shake and hide his face against the pillow. It’s still dark outside. A starless night, a lightless night. An endless night, stretching out time in a wicked attempt to postpone dawn.

But time cannot be stopped. And they have so little left.

Donghyuck doesn’t panic this time as Mark leaves him. He just watches silently, his expression so raw it’s unreadable. Is it rage, is it shame, is it sadness? Mark cannot tell. He cannot stay to find out.

Mark’s nosebleed has stopped, so he just scoops a shirt from the floor and uses it to dab at his face, rubbing at the last traces of dried blood on his skin. He dresses, mechanically, efficiently, in clean clothes that smell like Donghyuck’s sweetness, the way it has seeped into every cranny of Mark’s life.

At the door, Mark looks at Donghyuck one last time. A little bundle of hurt curled on the bed, his arms wrapped around his torso, hugging himself, a useless, childish gesture of self-comfort. He stiffens when his eyes meet Mark’s, and quickly looks away, but other than that he doesn’t give any other reaction. Mark does.

“I’m going to talk to my father,” Mark murmurs. “I will tell the guard to take you to Jeno, if you wish. There’s still more than an hour before dawn.”

Donghyuck doesn’t answer, but they both know he will go, as soon as Mark leaves. And Mark should. He really should leave.

“You said you loved me,” he says.

Donghyuck doesn’t even look up.

“I did.”

 

❃

 

The king is still where Mark had left him, sitting in his armchair. He looks outside the window, to the stone path that from the main gate of the castle leads to Dawyd - the same path Jeno will take as he leaves the castle and thee Vale forever. On the small table, the paper sheets are still where Mark had left them. He can see the creases his fingers left when the paper crumbled under his hands. Was it only a few hours ago? Maybe less. If not for the pain that still creeps through Mark’s vision, like a dark translucent veil that makes every color look muted, it could be like the last hour has never happened, like Mark never wrapped his fingers around Donghyuck’s pretty heart and felt it pulse under his palm. (Mark could’ve been gentle, coaxing it open like a flower. He wasn’t - _he wasn’t._ )

The bottle of liquor is empty now, but Mark has no hope it will help him. Alcohol doesn’t usually make his father weaker, merely nastier. The king gives his son a curt nod to acknowledge his presence, but doesn’t say anything. He waits for Mark to speak first.

Mark walks to the table instead, spreading the papers on the wood to look at all of them. He knows there was only one letter, the one Jeno never meant to send, the only one where he dared to be open with his feelings. He should have burned it, and he didn’t, and now everything is tumbling down, like tiles in a domino game, just because a single boy had some feelings.

The fire is crackling in the fireplace, Mark notices. It’s lively.

The notes are not relevant. No names, no dates, no specific places. Anyone could have written them. Anyone could have received them. They would never be considered proof of anything, but the letter… Oh, Mark is sorry, but not too much. Jaemin was never meant to read it anyway.

“Is this everything you found in Jeno’s room?” Mark asks, and at this point he can’t even be surprised by the way his voice sounds. Cold and impersonal, the same voice he used with Donghyuck a few hours ago.

The king looks up.

“Did the little bird tell you there was more?”

_Oh, the little bird told me many things. Not all on his own volition._

Mark doesn’t answer. He doesn’t look up, doesn’t bow, doesn’t wait for his father to make his move. The king can be cunning, he can be vigilant. Like a snake, he can foresee the moves of his opponent and act in advance. But the king thinks he has won. With Jeno gone and Mark suitably furious, the only thing left to do is deciding which punishment will befit the unruly Prince Consort, the little bird that sings too much and has hidden claws that need to be filed until they’re too blunt to draw blood.

And that’s what finally brings relief to the king’s face, the thought of being able to punish Donghyuck like he’s wanted to do for such a long time, to restore the balance that Donghyuck had inadvertently tipped back without even trying when he had entered the palace. Oh, now Mark can see the big picture. In the end, it doesn’t even matter that Donghyuck hadn’t wanted to disrespect the king, because if he can cause this much damage unintentionally, what could he do on purpose? Stopping, or at least restraining him makes sense, in its own wicked way, except Donghyuck has proved itself to be a force of nature, an unstoppable one. The only one who could stop him was his Alpha. And Mark did it in the end, didn’t he? Like a loyal pawn, he played his father’s game. He took the black queen, checkmate. (Except Donghyuck never called Mark a pawn. He called him his king.)

“So, have you decided what you will do with your boy? Adultery is not a light crime in the Vale, especially when it comes from an Omega who hasn’t even given you an heir yet. In an official, modern trial it would be a death sentence, but in the old times if the Omega was too precious to be killed ten lashes were enough to get the point across without ruining their pretty faces.”

Mark doesn’t give his father any reaction, but the flames peek into his eyes, whispering witnesses of his fury, and they dance, almost excited, mirroring the turmoil they’re seeing in him.

“I thought the point of keeping things unofficial was to avoid breaking the alliance,” Mark answers, curtly. The letter is light in his hand, almost inconsistent.

“Preserving the alliance is our priority, of course, but that doesn’t mean your boy didn’t commit a crime. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have to pay for it.”

The fire is so close. And warm. Mark can feel it lick at his fingertips. He takes a last step forward, his brows furrowed, his expression focused. He turns, just enough to look in his father’s eyes - he wants to see his face as he does this.

He murmurs, “Which crime?” and drops the letter in the fireplace.

It is, indeed, extremely satisfying to watch surprise turn into dread, dread turn into anger, anger turn into disbelief just to come back as anger once more.

“What did you do?” the king shouts. He gets up, pushing his son away to recover the letter, but the paper burns so quickly Mark can barely see the blaze it feeds. Only one moment, one flash of gold, and it is gone, forever. It was never meant to be read by Jaemin anyway, and even if it was, Jaemin would understand. With the letter gone, there’s no way to prove anything ever happened. (Sure, there’s the king’s word, but then there’s also the Crown Prince’s word.)

“Why would you do that, son?”

Mark is too tired to shake under his father’s accusing glare.

“No, why would you do that, father? Why would you purposefully pit me against my mate? Does the thought of me putting Donghyuck on his knees and whipping him in front of the court bring you joy?”

“No, not joy. But it would bring me relief, because at least that would prove that you didn’t come out as a complete fool! Your husband was opening his legs for another man! Disrespecting you, and me, in our household!”

Oh, now it’s our household, Mark thinks. Now I’m not just the runt of your savage princess from the borderlands, who was never able to give you the heir you wanted, the strong, ruthless, loyal son you needed. Only when you want me angry, only when you want me easy to control, only when you want me weak, it is _our_ household.

“What a pathetic excuse of an Alpha is a man who not only can’t control his own Omega, but doesn’t even punish him when he’s being disrespectful! If you don’t want to leash your dog, I will do it! I will bring this to the Council, if that’s what it takes for you to stop eating from that boy’s cursed hands!”

“You will not do anything, father. Donghyuck is not the royal Lord Jeno was talking about, and it would be wiser if none of us ever spoke about it again, especially in front of the Council.”

“Ah, this takes the crown! Is that what he said to you? Is this the lie you’ve foolishly chosen to believe? And who would the lucky one be, then?”

Ah, Mark was expecting this question. Already, he can see the wheels turning in his father’s head. The king doesn’t even question Mark’s words because he’s seen him angry, as angry as he could be, only hours ago, and he knows Mark would still be furious if Donghyuck had really cheated on him. Then who, he must be wondering. There’s Jaemin of course, and that information would potentially be poisonous in the king’s hands. But there’s also Sungmin, and that would really make the king angry - and, although it would be worth it to say his name just to see the king’s reaction, Mark could never use him like that. But there’s also a whole lot of minor nobles in the palace. The consequence of marrying only within the aristocracy of the Vale is that, at this point, almost everyone is related to the royal family. There’s Taeyong, who’s the only son of the king’s sister, there are a few cousins who came from the cadet branch of grandfather’s lineage, there are many options. And then...

“What if it was me?”

The king stops, eyes narrowing.

“You? You think me a fool, son?”

“Oh, no, father, _au contraire_ , I have learnt to fear your wisdom. But, do tell me, who’s gonna stop me from admitting my faults in front of the Council, whether they’re true or not, if you really try to bring this subject in front of the Lords? Adultery might not be punished as harshly when it’s committed by an Alpha, but I’m sure it would need to be punished in an exemplary way if it was committed by a Crown Prince whose marriage sealed an alliance. And how would the royal household, _our household_ , withstand this blow to its prestige?”

“You wouldn’t dare…”

“You have no idea what I did today, what your machinations led me to do. You have no idea what I’d do to make things right. Also, you don’t have any other heir for now. You can’t get rid of me so I’d kindly suggest you sit down and listen carefully to what I have come to say.”

“You… did you come here… to threaten me?”

Like he cannot believe what he’s hearing, the king sits back. He looks at Mark like he doesn’t recognize him. Truthfully, Mark can barely recognize himself. He wills himself not to shake. He wills himself not to waver. He cannot show any weakness, because his father speaks only the language of power. Well, Mark finally knows what he can do with all the power he supposedly has.

“I came here to beg for your permission. And I expect nothing less than that from you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls wish me luck i'll do my best to update soon ;; love you all <3<3


	22. xxii. a promise that, come spring, this earth will be reborn in green

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter marks the end of the first arc, and next chapter will start with an interlude in Donghyuck's POV. It is a very important chapter, and I'm sorry it had to come after a month of me basically not writing anything because it means I'm rusty af and I had to struggle a lot to get things right. I'm still doubtful I managed but if I keep doubting myself I'll never publish. The quality might be overall lower and there might be mistakes but I really did my best. It's a very long chapter and there was even a scene I had to cut because I didn't want to split this chapter in half, but I hope I portrayed everything well.  
> Also, again, I don't know when I'll be able to update again but very soon the semester will be over and updates will be quicker during winter vacations.  
> I tried my best to reply as many comments as I could but there were literally so many. I'm sorry if my replies are very short and very late, but the comments are one of the best things about writing for me so even if it takes me a long, long time I don't want to give up on replying. It might take a little more, but I am so grateful for you all and you deserve to be thanked personally.  
>   
> edit: since a reader talked about this in the comments, I would like to reiterate that the relationship between Mark and Donghyuck is not healthy (the fic is tagged as such) and it hasn't been healthy since the beginning. I have never intended this fic to be a representation of an ideal relationship, I wanted to write about people making mistakes and not knowing how to deal with them.  
> I know some of you must be disappointed by what has happened in the last three chapters, maybe because you weren't expecting things to turn this dark or because you simply don't like my narrative, but the end of this arc has been one of the few parts I plotted almost since the beginning and that I really wanted to write. If by any means you think you cannot or don't want to read a fic that deals with such sensitive and possibly triggering themes, or if you don't like the way I am dealing with these themes, I think you should always put yourself first and stop reading. Please always remember that this fic is rated and read the tags very carefully.
> 
> \- TW for this chapter: blood  
> \- [chapter title inspiration](https://avolitorial.tumblr.com/post/164988364702/bracketed-from-translation-by-anne-carson)  
> \- [Playlist](https://twitter.com/aprilclaws/status/1156324062047670272)  
> \- Idk how I could miss this but free promo for [sparring markhyuck in chapter 9](https://twitter.com/lunnarsystem/status/1154467505185918979) by @lunnarsystem, truly a gift for this fandom ;;

“Where is Donghyuck?”

Jeno doesn’t even look up from the big trunk lying open in the middle of the room. A small bag has already been packed and it’s lying closed on the unmade bed, but he’s leaving almost all of his belongings in the palace, to be sent to him in spring, when the sea route will open again. Normally they would’ve followed him to the port, a long trail of chariots and carts traveling the three days of painstakingly slow journey that separate Dawyd from Dalia, but there’s no time for that. The last ship will leave tonight, and Jeno will have to ride that distance on one of the swift steeds of the palace if he wants to get there in time.

“I thought he was still here with you.”

Jeno closes the trunk with a resolute thump and stares at Mark, brows furrowing at his words. His eyes are a little puffy.

“He already left,” he murmurs. He sniffs, almost as to chase away the last traces of unshed tears. “He doesn’t like goodbyes.”

The words were not said in an accusing tone, but they still sting. And yet there’s little Mark can do about Jeno leaving at this point.

“I burned your letter,” he says instead. “I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t say what he’s sorry for - destroying Jeno’s letter, wanting to punch him until his pretty face was barely recognizable, not being able to stop his father from sending him away, hurting Donghyuck - but Jeno doesn’t seem to care. His eyes widen when Mark mentions the letter, but he quickly looks down again.

“Donghyuck is right, you are quite annoying. I would like to keep being angry with you because you totally deserve it, but now I might actually have to thank you for burning that stupid letter.”

“It was a really nice letter,” Mark adds, trying to be comforting. Jeno sighs.

“It was a stupid letter and I’m sorry for writing it. It complicated everything.”

“You shouldn’t have written it, or you should’ve destroyed it yourself, but it’s not your fault. My father would’ve found another way to frame you and send you away. He’s been wanting to do that for a while.” It hurts to admit it. Mark loves his father and respects his king, and for his whole life he trusted them both. Tonight though, he feels like he’s crossed an uncrossable line. He’s not sure he will ever be able to look at his father, at his king, and see a father and a king again, instead of a lonely man who’s growing old and stubborn and jealous.

“He wanted Donghyuck to be alone here,” he continues. Not only he wanted Jeno gone, he wanted Mark angry. He wanted both of them angry at each other, hurting each other in ways that could not be undone. Oh. “He got what he wanted, in the end.”

“He’s not alone, isn’t he? He has you.”

Mark looks down and lets out a self-deprecating little laugh at that. It sounds like Donghyuck hasn’t told Jeno what happened between them. If he had, Mark is sure Jeno would’ve been at his throat right now. The law of the Vale might always stand on the Alpha’s side, but in the Islands disrespecting your mate the way Mark did is considered an offense to the marriage vows said in the name of the goddess, thus an offense to the goddess herself. Donghyuck could break their marriage for that if he wanted. He probably wants, but he won’t do it. Stupid Donghyuck and his stupid pride, and stupid Mark who doesn’t know how to make him happy.

“Having me might not be such a great thing, to be honest. I can’t help Donghyuck like he deserves. I can’t be the husband he needs.”

“You think Donghyuck knows what he needs? He doesn’t even know what he wants.”

Mark shakes his head.

“You saw how I overreacted earlier. I don’t think I can… I don’t understand Donghyuck at all, and every time I think I got him pinned down, he slips away.”

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t try to pin him down.”

Jeno sighs and sits on the closed trunk. Outside, the sky is lighting up, from black to dark grey. The sun is rising behind the thick veil of clouds, counting the moments they have left until Jeno has to leave.

“Listen, Hyuck is not the easiest person to be around,” Jeno says, weighing every word carefully. “He thinks too much, he fears even more and he doesn’t give his trust easily. He won’t let you help him because he has too much pride for that, but he will help you if you ask.”

“He wouldn’t.”

“Have you ever asked him?”

Mark picks at the hem of his sleeve. He never did, not really. It’s not like it matters, at this point. Mark has kind of lost his right to ask.

“I just…”

Jeno cuts him short. There’s no time, no time.

“You like him, don’t you?”

Oh, does Mark like Donghyuck? Yes, to the point of breaking him to see how he works only to cut himself on the sharp shards. (He remembers, a long time ago, it seems like centuries have come and gone and it was just a few weeks, thinking Donghyuck was made of blown glass, pretty and shimmery and so fragile, catching the light and turning into gold, ready to shatter, ready to pierce.)

“I love him so much it hurts,” Mark replies.

It hurts him. It hurts Donghyuck too, and Jeno lets out a quiet breath as a flash of bitterness scrunches his face, so quick Mark could barely see it.

“You really are annoying. Even when you’re an asshole, you’re so nice it’s difficult to hate you.”

He must know, Mark realizes, he must know Donghyuck used to love Mark too. He must know and he won’t tell Mark about it - Mark is not sure he will ever deserve to know the truth - and he must be thinking Mark is a fool, and maybe Donghyuck is too. Fools, the both of them, missing each other again and again, loving each other one-sidedly, uselessly.

A bell rings and the soft voice of one of the maids calls to Jeno from behind the closed door.

“My lord? It is time.”

Jeno gets up and rubs his hands together, trying to warm them up. Mark thought he was nervous when he entered, but it’s not like that. Even if he hides it well, Jeno is grieving. If Donghyuck had been there, perhaps they would both still be crying.

“It looks like I will have to leave my best friend in your hands, then, even if you don’t feel like you deserve it.” He wears the cape on his own, slipping it on his shoulder and fastening on the front with a golden pin in the shape of his family crest. He grimaces, sighs and looks straight up at Mark.

“I don’t know what you did to him that made him cry so hard, but you need to find a way to fix it.”

“I don’t know how to.”

“You have to, you’re the only who can now. But remember, if you make him cry again I swear I will come back to this country and make you pay for it.”

 

❃

 

“Is Donghyuck in there?”

Jaehyun stands up from the couch, looking haunted. If he was on duty, he would never dare enter the Crown Prince’s apartments, let alone sit on the royal sofa, but he’s not on duty. He looks like he was waiting for Mark.

“Dongyoung left,” he says, ignoring Mark’s question.

“I noticed,” is Mark’s only response. He didn’t actually think Dongyoung would go this soon - he thought the king would take a few days to decide where to send him. Yet, in the end Dongyoung left the palace together with Jeno and Jungwoo, to take the last ship bound for the Southern Islands. Mark sent them out only a few minutes ago, watched them ride away from the merlons of the castle walls.

A quick look inside the bedroom shows that Donghyuck is not here, either, and that’s when Mark starts worrying. The knight who should have been guarding him left him in Jeno’s room, but he wasn’t there either.

“Did you know he would have to go with Lord Jeno?”

Jaehyun’s voice is ragged, broken, but Mark doesn’t really care about Jaehyun’s feelings at the moment. He furrows his brows, trying to imagine where Donghyuck could’ve gone. There’s not much time left.

“Did you know, Mark?”

Jaehyun fists Mark’s jacket, something that could cost him his position and a good chunk of his honor, but Mark simply pushes him away with a huff.

“I didn’t. But I bet he considered the possibility of being exiled, the same way Jungwoo did when he decided to talk to Donghyuck behind my back yesterday night.”

Jaehyun grimaces even more at the mention of Jungwoo’s name. They’re good friends, the two of them, Southward boys who come from the sea and bonded over memories of salt and sand. Jaehyun was the one who convinced Jungwoo to join the Royal Guard years ago, and Mark knows one of the reasons Jaehyun is so cross with him about Donghyuck is because of the punishment Jungwoo received back when Donghyuck was found with Mark at the training fields. And now Jungwoo is gone, punished for helping Donghyuck just like Dongyoung is being punished for helping Mark. The spies of the king are so efficient, so fast. And they’re everywhere. Dongyoung, who talked to Mark. Jungwoo, who talked to Donghyuck. And yet this is not just about Donghyuck anymore, it’s also about Mark. About depriving him of his allies in the palace.

“I hope you’re happy,” Jaehyun spits out. “In the end, your dear husband will come out untouched while other people take the fall for him.”

Mark turns, his face impassive.

“If this is the way you think no wonder Dongyoung was so eager to leave.”

His words hit Jaehyun like a slap, but Mark doesn’t stop there.

“Jungwoo went willingly. I talked to him right before they left, and he said he promised Donghyuck he would look out for Jeno.”

Jungwoo said many things. That he was sorry for visiting Donghyuck while he was in heat and Mark wasn’t there, that he was sorry for telling him Jeno had been arrested. He said he didn’t regret it. He said Mark shouldn’t worry about him. (Mark will worry anyway.)

“They became friends. You know, that thing that happens when you like someone and you’re willing to do stuff for them. Jungwoo knew he would be punished but he still went to talk to Donghyuck, because they were friends. Dongyoung also did what he did because he’s my friend.”

Jaehyun’s lips twitch and he rubs his eyes nervously, trying to keep his frustration at bay.

“I tried to tell you,” he mutters. “The day we were supposed to search Lord Jeno’s room, I tried to tell you. You didn’t let me.”

“Maybe you should’ve tried harder.”

“I thought I was doing the right thing for you!” Jaehyun is screaming right now, and Jaehyun never screams. He has been trained to rein his emotions in, to let his Alpha bow down to others. He’s the second son, he’s a general, he’s in love with a Beta who refuses him. After all, Jaehyun is quite used to be someone who takes orders and doesn’t complain even when he thinks they’re unfair. But now he’s cracking, like fine blue porcelain, and Mark thinks it’s finally time to see what he’s hiding inside. “I stood next to Donghyuck, every single day, and I saw the way he acted with Lord Jeno, everyone saw it. And it was inappropriate. You’re my prince, and you’ll be my king someday, but you’re also my friend and I didn’t want you to be disrespected like that!”

Mark inhales sharply, drowning for a moment in the jealousy he had felt only a few hours ago. Yes, Donghyuck laughed with Jeno, he smiled to Jeno, he held his hands, crouching in his best friend’s personal space like it was the only place in the whole palace where he could feel safe. It probably was.

“There was nothing between Donghyuck and Jeno” Mark answers, in the end. “He’s my mate. If there had been something, I would have smelled it on him. But you didn’t come to me, you went to my father. And my father did what he knows best. Divide and rule. He divided Donghyuck from Jeno, and from Jungwoo, and from me too, so that he could be alone and weak and easier to control. And then he divided me from Dongyoung because the Goddess forbid I have a friend in this palace who’s more loyal to me than he is to him. He divided Lord Johnny of the Clairs from my cousin because he thinks their union would be too powerful. He divided Dongyoung from you, because he needed a bargaining chip to make sure you will always follow your orders.”

“No, that’s not…”

“Were you planning on going to complain to him after talking to me? Ask him to go to the Islands instead of Jungwoo?” Jaehyun doesn’t answer but his body tenses, giving Mark the answer anyway. “He won't let you do that. You’re way too precious here, where he can control you. He will tell you that if you behave he’ll let Dongyoung come back. You’re free to do what he says, but in the end even if you play by my father’s rules you might not get him back.”

“And why is that?”

“Because Dongyoung has already decided he won’t play by the king’s rules. Being loyal doesn’t mean you have to be dumb about it, Yoonoh. Think about it.”

 

❃

 

“I’m looking for my husband.”

The woman sitting at the window and lays the tiny porcelain cup, golden-lined and painted with pink rose blossoms, on the table. She licks her lips. The wool shawl she’s wearing threatens to slip down from her shoulder to the night vest she’s wearing, but she catches it and pulls it back in place again as her eyes meet Mark’s.

“Well, I’m not looking for mine. He seems to be in a very bad mood.”

“Did he come here to rant about me?” Mark asks, and the queen nods slightly.

“Called you a disappointment and said you really are my son. I’ve never been more proud.”

Mark chuckles. The queen smiles back and gestures for the two ladies-in-waiting sitting on the sofa to leave.

“Come, sit my son. Your father is probably bugging your brother for validation right now. If we’re lucky Sungmin will be able to calm him down. Now, why are you looking for this husband of yours here of all places?”

Mark shrugs, but doesn’t sit down. He doesn’t have much time left.

“He’s not in our rooms and his best friend just left. He must be in distress. You’re an Omega too, and I know he respects you, so I thought he might have come here.”

The queen shakes her head. A strand of dark hair slips from the loose braid falling down her shoulder. She pulls it back distractedly, pins it behind her ear.

“You’re his mate, aren’t you? Why don’t you use the bond to find him?”

Mark hesitates. The thought of doing it crossed his mind, but he’s too afraid of the pain he might find once he reopens his connection with Donghyuck. The bond sits heavy in his mind, dormant, but even brushing against it with his thoughts makes a cold ache spread in his chest.

“Our bond is... not in the best shape. I might have hurt him a lot yesterday night.”

The queen doesn’t press him for more details, but Mark finds the words tumbling down his mouth anyway. He doesn’t linger on the details, but he sees her nostrils flare when he mentions the way he forced Donghyuck to tell him the truth.

“I have no words for you, my son, and no one has ever managed to render me speechless like this, not even your father,” she says when he’s done. “I have no advice either, for I’ve never had the pleasure to have someone loving me like you love that boy, even if you were a fool about it. For the Seat of the Gods Mark, our court’s jester would have handled things better than you. Next time your father comes to complain about you I might actually tell him you’re more his son than he thinks.”

Mark bows his head low. His mother is not angry, but she is disappointed. Mark can’t blame her.

“I don’t really know what to do,” he murmurs, and she calls him to her side, cards her fingers through his hair in a soothing gesture when she realizes how upset he is.

“Hush, sweet child. I cannot tell you what to do, this is something you have to figure out by yourself. What I can tell you is to stop being afraid. What if the bond hurts? You made it that way, so you have to take responsibility and make things better. Standing up to your father is useless if you don’t solve things with your husband first.” She gestures for him to come closer, and he leans forward to lay a kiss on her cheek.

She talks again, right before he leaves, her words warm and sweet like the honey milk she was drinking.

“This was, since the beginning, an arranged marriage, but destiny might have inadvertently chosen the right mate for you when it brought Donghyuck of the Southern Islands on our doorstep. Truly, that boy is a fool just as much as you are.”

 

❃

 

Donghyuck was wearing gold, Mark faintly remembers. On his skin, a sheer tunic, translucent under the sun, and threaded in golden strings crisscrossing around his wrists, his hips, his ankles, shining at his neck in a single chainlet with a locket but no key. Gold on his cheekbones, and on his Cupid’s bow, like a drop of sunlight shining wetly on his lips. Gold on his hair, golden flowers, and if Mark closes his eyes he can almost remember their scent, jasmine, lemonflower and freesia. Honeysuckle. Even in oil and pigment brushed carefully over white canvas and hung on the wall in the dark gallery of the palace, even in a painted imitation of the early summer dream he was on the day of their wedding, Donghyuck shines, vibrant, like something that is not meant to be looked at directly. Like the sun. Like glory. Like ruin.

But summer has died slowly and fall has fallen too, and Donghyuck’s hair is not golden like wheat, but burnt, ashen, like something precious left for so long buried underground, hidden, rusting. (Mark wants to shake the dust off of him, reveal the shine underneath.)

The bond sings a song of pain, broken, out of tune, sharp enough to cut glass, sharp enough to cut Mark’s heart. And sharp is the sword in Donghyuck’s hands, the sharpest blade, honed every day by Mark’s most trusted squire, made to slay and to impress. The delicate hilt, all platinum swirls, looks almost fragile in Donghyuck’s calloused hands.

Donghyuck raises the sword until the blade is in front of his eyes, parallel to his body, cutting his face in two - a blade of light, catching a stray reflection coming from the window. He closes his eyes, then opens then, suddenly, looks at Mark for a long moment, his eyes made of brown gold.

And then he swirls, graceful, weightless, like a dancer, and Mark wishes, he wishes he had danced with him the day of their wedding. He wishes he could’ve seen that whirlwind of gold, the way the silk would’ve followed his body like a shroud of liquid light. Donghyuck swirls on his toes, dancing to the song of his pain in the middle of the portrait room - and winter might have dulled out his colors, but he’s still brighter than the painting at his back, the painting of his wedding day.

The tip of the sword kisses Mark’s skin and halts there, lingering at his throat. It’s Mark’s sword, but that doesn’t stop it from drawing Mark’s own blood. Donghyuck’s eyes are red, still swollen and painfully dry. Now that his heat is over, now that the tears have fallen, what is left is the pain. The sharpness. The sword he’s holding against Mark’s pulse.

Mark exhales and his breath fogs the shiny, polished blade of the sword. The light coming from the window hits Donghyuck’s chin and mouth, leaving the rest of his face hidden in the half-shadows. His bottom lip is trembling.

“How could you?” he asks, and Mark tries to move forward for a moment before the blade, his own blade, bites deeper at his throat. “How could you do that to me? After everything you said, everything you did… how could you even…”

“Donghyuck, please,” Mark whispers, frantically looking for words even as words fail him. “Please listen to me. I’m sorry. I’m terribly sorry. I would do anything to win your forgiveness. And even if you don’t… What I did… I will not be able to forgive myself until I die, but…“

The sword shakes, for a moment, but Donghyuck straightens his back and holds it tighter until it stops moving. He shouldn’t even be holding a sword, an Omega threatening an Alpha with his own sword, what a joke, the king would have a field trip with this. Mark’s eyes dart towards the door to make sure no one is there, but that split moment of distraction makes Donghyuck even angrier.

“Then maybe you should just die,” he whispers, poisonous.

It’s only years of training, carefully honed instincts and the emotions flooding through the bond that lead Mark to take a step to the left and avoid the blade just as Donghyuck stalks even closer, swinging against him. The sword grazes Mark’s forearm, but he doesn’t feel the sting. Donghyuck is fast, so fast and so angry, and Mark takes a step back, ducks another step to the left, barely evading Donghyuck’s lunges in a waltz without music, their step silent on the black and white checkered tiles.

“Donghyuck, you need to stop now,” he tries, but Donghyuck laughs, almost hysterically, high in his throat, and this time Mark cannot step back because there’s nowhere left to go. His back hits the glass panel of the window, and Donghyuck swirls, his feet light and his hand swift, and Mark knows the sword is going to cut through his chest, in the empty space between rib and rib, right into his heart. He doesn’t know if Donghyuck will stop in time, he doesn’t know if Donghyuck _can_ stop in time, not when he’s more emotional turmoil than boy. He doesn’t even think he deserves for Donghyuck to stop in time. And yet, whether he is bluffing or not, Donghyuck _must_ be stopped. So Mark stops him.

The bells of the Temple of Dawyd ring the First After Dawn, calling the followers to the first prayer of the day. Under the window, basking in cold light, Donghyuck looks lost. His eyes aren’t dry anymore. They aren’t wet either, not yet. They’re dark and deep and desperate, the eyes of someone who’s mourning and doesn’t know what he’s mourning for. His hands are not trembling, but his mouth is. Mark’s blood splatters on the floor between them, trickling down his palm and wrist, flowing freely from where the blade is tightly held in his grip. Donghyuck tries to move the sword - to take it away or plunge it deeper, Mark doesn’t know. It doesn’t matter if it’s a push or a pull, Mark just holds tighter, closing his fist around the blade and squeezing it so hard that even the last sting of pain and the cold of the metal disappear and the only thing he feels is the way Donghyuck trembles on the other hand of the sword when the blood trickling down the blade reaches the hilt and wets his palm.

“Didn't you say you were ready to do anything?” Donghyuck asks, his voice harsh, rugged, breathless. “What if I ask you to die?”

Oh, Mark would. If he could, he would. But he can’t.

“I can’t,” he says. “I would do it. For you. If you gave me the honor to die by your hand, I would accept it as a brother in arms or as an enemy. But you’re my husband, Donghyuck. If I die - if you kill me…” There’s the alliance, and there’s the war. And yet Mark doesn’t care about either. He can only think of Donghyuck, thrown in the dungeon, in a cold, dirty cell. Donghyuck alone, without his mate. Donghyuck regretting what he did, or maybe not regretting it at all but suffering anyway. Donghyuck in pain. “If you kill me, I won’t be able to protect you. No one would. So I can’t let you kill me, I’m sorry.”

_Even if I deserve it._

Donghyuck lets out a pained keen at his words. He tries to pull the sword back, but Mark moves faster. He steps closer - the sword between them, still tightly held in his left hand, cutting it open - and he grabs Donghyuck’s wrist with his free hand. Donghyuck tries to get some space between them, but he can’t, not as long as he’s still holding the sword - not at Mark is not letting go of the other end of the sword. Mark’s hold on his wrist is bruising, but it’s the shock of their bodies being so close that makes him let go of the sword, just as Mark lets it go as well. It lands between them, on the red splatter of blood on the black and white marble, and the clang rings loudly on the empty gallery, startling Donghyuck.

It’s the opening Mark was waiting for. He catches both of Donghyuck’s hands, stopping him from running away or picking up the sword again, and draws him against his chest. It’s more hand-on-hand combat than a hug, but Mark doesn’t let go, even as Donghyuck struggles against his hold.

“Please, listen to me,” he begs, and Donghyuck bares his teeth like a cornered animal.

“What else do you want from me?”

“I want to make it right!”

“And how do you plan to do that?” he screams, and kicks, and tugs, and then stops suddenly when Mark speaks, so low that it’s more bond than voice at this point.

“I will let you go home.”

 

❃

 

Mark is expecting so many things but he’s not ready for the cold, choked emotion that trickles through the bond. It’s as if Donghyuck is choking their connection, desperately trying to keep Mark out. But there are things he can’t control. The way his scent sours, the way his expression twists - he looks exactly like he did yesterday night, as Mark breached through his mind and will. It’s betrayal, and it’s cold and deep like the sea at night, and it’s in his eyes.

“You’re sending me away?” Donghyuck asks, under his breath. And it’s an accusation as much as it is a plea for help.

Mark exhales slowly. He can do this. He has to do this.

“If you leave now you can reach Dalia before the last ship departs,” he murmurs, trying to keep his voice steady, because if he falters now he’ll never be able to let Donghyuck go. “If you sail on that ship, you’ll be free. No other vessel will be able to reach the Islands for the rest of winter.”

And even if they did, it would be useless. Donghyuck is not happy here and everyone can see it. The moment Mark lets him go, the moment he comes home, is the moment he’s gone for good. His family will never let him come back to Dawyd, to this life of humiliation and misery. Not him, not their precious prince, their beloved golden prince.

Donghyuck blinks, speechless, and grimaces, and looks back at Mark.

“Is this what you needed to tell your father about? Is this why you left me… You… You left me alone, after doing _that_ to me, to go and find a way to get rid of me?”

“No, Donghyuck no. I’m not getting rid of you. I’m giving you a way out. You said you wanted to leave, didn’t you?”

Donghyuck chuckles, like he honestly cannot believe Mark’s words.

“Oh, _now_ you listen to what I say? Now that it’s convenient? Now that you fucked up and you don’t know what to do and it’s just easier to send me away?”

He’s not screaming because his voice is too hoarse, but he tries to scream anyway and his voice comes out as an angry screech.

“Then what do you want me to do?” Mark retorts, his voice breaking on the last word. “Do you want to stay here and kill me and get executed for it? I can’t allow that, I won’t _ever_ allow that. I’d rather send you back!”

“I wouldn’t have killed you, I don’t want you dead! I’m angry, I’m just fucking angry, okay? Do you realize, do you have any idea of what you did to me?”

Mark grabs him by the shoulder and opens the bond between them at the same time, letting their feelings flood between them for a moment, so strong and loud and deep that they both almost drown on them. Donghyuck’s anger, his hurt, his pain, lacing itself onto Mark’s guilt, a chain of chaos that closes around their necks threatening to choke them both. He lets go, suddenly, and they both stumble when the onslaught of emotions disappears.

“Yes, I do,” Mark says, breathless. “I know what I did to you, and I don’t even know how can I live with myself for the rest of my life knowing I did something so ugly to the person I love.”

Donghyuck shakes at his words, filled by a feeling so big Mark feels it through the bond despite Donghyuck’s reluctance to let it go.

“Then why are you sending me away?”

“I told you! I’m trying to make things right, I’m trying to make you happy.”

“This won’t make me happy at all!”

“Then what do you want me to do?”

“I want you to fix it!” Donghyuck screams, pushing him. “Stop running away from the problem and fucking fix it!”

He yanks his hands back from Mark’s hold. Mark instinctively tries to grab onto him, to keep him from leaving, but Donghyuck is not leaving. He’s coming closer, stepping in Mark’s personal space, his hands slipping under Mark’s chin, fingers splayed on his jaw, eyes fluttering closed in the eerie light of the morning as he crashes his lips onto Mark’s.

(And Mark has never been kissed like this. He has never been kissed by Donghyuck either. He kissed Donghyuck, many times, and Donghyuck kissed him back, but not like this, never like this. With hands cupping his face, holding him there, and tongue and teeth and urgency and abandon, as if Donghyuck really wants this, as if the only air he can breathe is the one they share when their lips part.

How long, Mark wonders, how long has Donghyuck wanted to kiss him like this? He’s never loved anyone but Mark, he said, so he must have wanted this, in silence, in the privacy of his own mind, he must have longed for this, during the long summer nights in the Islands, he must have dreamed of arching himself into Mark’s warmth, pulling at his hair to angle his face better, spoiled and demanding, of sucking on his top lip, then the bottom one, lips falling open to welcome Mark’s tongue, taste him all over.

Donghyuck kisses Mark like he still loves him and it’s the last chance he has to show it. How long could Donghyuck have hidden this, had Mark not pried it from his soft, warm lips?)

Donghyuck gives one last lick between Mark’s lips, tugging at the bottom one with his teeth before soothing it with his lips, and then lets go, his lashes fluttering open. He’s breathless, and Mark is breathless too. He still looks angry. He still looks beautiful.

“I hate you,” he murmurs. “I hate you so much. Why did you have to do that?”

“Because I was scared. And I was angry. And I was jealous. And I’ve never been jealous of anything in my life except of you, when we were younger, and even that cannot be compared to what I felt when I found out you had left our nest, Donghyuck. You were in your heat, vulnerable and warm and needy, and you were with another man, and you had chosen to do that. It made me feel worthless.”

Donghyuck closes his eyes at that, squeezes them harshly.

“I told you I would hurt you,” he murmurs.

“You also told me I would hurt you back.”

Donghyuck looks down at that, his shoulders hunched, looking so tiny. The fight has all drained out of him, any argument pointless in the wake of this morning. It’s over, and no one has won. They have both lost.

“I cannot forgive you now,” Donghyuck answers. “ You made me feel worthless too.”

Mark cannot help but draw him closer again, daring to wrap his arms around his back. The bond expands between them tentatively, hesitantly, just as tentative and hesitant is the way Donghyuck lets himself fall in Mark’s arms, leaning his forehead down on Mark’s shoulder. His pain floods the connection between them and Mark winces quietly but doesn’t let go.

 _Is this what you wanted?_ Mark thinks _Did you want comfort? Did you want to be held? Or did you just want to hurt me like I hurt you? It doesn’t matter. Rather than letting you go, I want you to hurt me too._

Donghyuck’s face is hidden, buried on Mark’s shirt, and Mark wants to pull it up, hold it between his hands the way he would cradle a little bird in winter as he takes it home, but his left hand is still bleeding copiously. He tries to move his fingers and a flash of pain makes him sucks in a sharp breath.

Donghyuck looks up at the sound, eyes widening as he takes in the blood trickling down Mark’s sleeve.

“You’re bleeding,” he murmurs, slowly, as if he just realized - as if he wasn’t the one who tried to slash Mark open mere minutes ago. “Your hand… We have to get the physician! It needs to be cleaned and bandaged and...”

“Donghyuck.”

“Goddess, you could’ve cut a nerve, we need to check and…”

“Donghyuck.”

“Why did you stop it with your hand, you careless… I wouldn’t have hurt you, I was just… I was angry, but I wouldn’t have, I would’ve stopped myself in time, I…”

Mark gives up and closes his left hand on Donghyuck’s shoulder, dripping red all over the white silk. What a pity, it was a nice shirt. He pulls him down until they’re both on their knees.

“Donghyuck, breathe.”

Donghyuck looks at Mark, at the way his chest heaves up and down, for a moment he stands there, petrified, and then breath leaves his mouth in a rush.

“Like this, slowly.”

“Your hand…”

“Will be fine. It’s not that deep,” he lies, and shushes Donghyuck’s soft noise of protest. “If we go to the physician now, we’ll have to explain what happened. You’re not really supposed to hold a sword, you know?”

Donghyuck sighs and pulls back and Mark pathetically tries to cling onto him, thinking he’s leaving, but Donghyuck simply unfastens the sash tied around his waist.

“Your hand,” he asks.

When Mark extends it, he carefully wraps the sash around the wound and pulls it tightly, making Mark wince. He checks the knot carefully, looking so focused and unreal, kneeling in Mark’s blood in the middle of the gallery, Mark’s bloody fingerprints all over the white silk of his shirt, like the ghost in an illustrated book.

He looks up, bites his bottom lip just like he bit Mark’s when they kissed.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“No, it’s okay,” Mark answers, flexing his fingers. “It doesn’t hurt too much.”

Donghyuck shakes his head.

“No, I’m sorry about going to Jeno. And I’m sorry about not telling you the truth when you asked me. I didn’t think about how that would make you feel. I guess I… I never thought about what my actions would imply, as an Omega.” He pauses, his hands worrying at the ribbon on top of the makeshift bandage. “I’m not stupid. I know Jeno’s room was searched because he and I were always too close, ignoring etiquette, but I just… Everything was so different when people thought I was going to be an Alpha. I could do anything without worrying. Now it seems like even when I breathe I’m doing something wrong.”

Donghyuck’s hands are too gentle around Mark’s palm, rubbing the skin nervously. He tried to kill Mark with these same hands. Mark doesn’t want to see him hurt to that extent again. He brings his other hand up, trapping Donghyuck’s hands in his own, rubbing them to warm them up.

“I’m sorry too. I did something horrible to you and I understand if you’ll never forgive me, but I’m not sending you away because of that. I don’t want to get rid of you. I’d keep you here forever, even if you couldn’t forgive me, even if you hated me, I’d still want you for myself because I’m selfish like that. And I’m afraid, I’m so afraid that if I let you go now you’ll never come back to me again.”

“Then why are you letting me go?” Donghyuck asks, and Mark lets out a tired laugh.

“I’m not letting you go, I’m letting you choose.” Mark looks down, at their joined hands. He tries not to show how nervous he is, but he knows Donghyuck can feel it through the bond. How funny. What he did, instead of tearing their bond apart, seems to have made them even more sensitive, almost attuned to each other's feelings. “I’m not the best at making decisions, it seems, especially under pressure. I cannot trust myself to do the right thing and you deserve nothing short of the right thing.”

“Does that mean you trust me to do the right thing?”

Mark tries to smile and pulls Donghyuck’s hands to his mouth, lays a kiss on his fingers.

“I hope you do,” he says, eyes not leaving Donghyuck’s.

“So what happens if I leave?”

“I’ll come back to you at the beginning of spring. Then, if you still wish to come back with me, I will take you home.”

Donghyuck’s eyes narrow.

“And what happens if I stay?”

“Come closer and I’ll tell you.”

Mark leans down until his mouth is next to Donghyuck’s ears, whispering his answer as if to shield this secret from the ears of all the portraits of the gallery.

When he finishes, he leans down, resting his forehead against Donghyuck’s shoulder.

“I know you’re going to need time to forgive me. I know you might not forgive me at all. I know that I love you,” - and here it is, again, that warm feeling shining through the bond like a golden jewel lost at the bottom of a pond, out of reach but still so beautiful - “but I also know that loving you is not enough. I don’t think I’m worthy of you right now, so I’ll stop saying meaningless words from now on. I will not say it again until I have earned it. But I will show you, if you let me. I will become someone who can make you happy. So please, whether you go or you stay, just give me another chance.”

Donghyuck closes his eyes, rubs his nose against Mark’s. Tomorrow he could be gone, like a snowbird, heading South to escape the rigors of winter. Or he could still be here, tied to these cold walls by his honor and a promise he can’t fulfil, hating his life, hating his mate, unable to leave. But tomorrow is wrapped in white and today has the shimmer of gold, so even if it’s the last - because it is the last - in a long, long time, Mark kisses Donghyuck again.

“So, what do you choose?”

Outside, on a sky whiter than white, a ribbon of ice floats, waltzes in the air. The first snow of the year falls like a shroud on Donghyuck’s answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no, i have no intention to reveal what donghyuck has chosen because i'm still in the middle of deciding it myself and this is just a way for me to gain some time and think about it while i write the interlude since i already changed the plot eight times in the past month thank for coming to my ted talk i love you all  
> (also get ready for baby donghyuck with a baby crush next time)


	23. xxiii. (interlude) long after i am gone, you will remember what we did together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -This chapter will be in Donghyuck's pov.  
> -Since I have decided to only write a couple of chapters in his pov in order not to disrupt or delay the main story too much, but I also wanted to include as many moments as I could, I decided to keep the style as plain and blunt as possible. I still hope you all like it even if it's a little different. (Also you can see from the first part how I started writing in my normal style, saw how much a single part was taking and then gave up on that so I could write more different memories lol) It is also unbetaed because I won't be able to post for the next few days so it was either today or next week, please forgive any typos (you can always message me if you find one).  
> -In two weeks the semester will be over. I have a couple of reports and final assignments to write, but after I'm done I'll try to go back to the usual weekly update schedule.  
> -Thank you for all the support. I'm still behind on answering the comments, though I'm slowly catching up. Last chapter was mentally very hard on me, but I want to thank everyone who supported me or the fic, you're super precious and you deserve all the love. Thank you so much <3  
> -Lastly, like I said for the previous chapter, I would really like you to consider the tags and the ratings very well before you start reading. Please value your mental health and make sure you're comfortable with the content. Also, I answer every comment but I will not answer any rude comments or messages.  
> EDIT: thanks to emmi347 for reminding me it was also Dongsoon's birthday bc duh she and Donghyuck are twins. I edited u.u
> 
>  
> 
> \- Warnings for this chapter: crossdressing for the sake of political alliances? deceiving your (un)friendly neighbours? also giant mythological flesh-eating creatures  
> \- [chapter title inspiration](https://avolitorial.tumblr.com/post/162609280287/from-translation-by-anne-carson-expansions-on)  
> \- Song for this chapter is Crystal Child by Splitter ([playlist](https://twitter.com/aprilclaws/status/1156324062047670272))  
> \- Free promo for these beautiful and fashionable [looks from honeymouthed](https://twitter.com/yaori94/status/1199686874152890369) by @yaori94 (scusa se ti ho paccata oggi ma ti voglio super bene e sto andando a dormire presto perché me l'hai detto tu)

Donghyuck has yet to see five winters when he dies and meets the Sea God.

They’re sailing right above the Seacourt, a few thousands of meters above the bed of the sea, a place of legends and fairytales. Once upon a time, right on this stretch of water, the Sea God built a palace for the Goddess of the Sun, the most beautiful palace for his bride-to-be. But when she ran away and refused to marry him, his fury was so great that it infected the whole sea like a disease, and every ship daring to venture into the water was sunken, never to return again. Mankind then prayed to the Goddess, and the Goddess answered. She struck the palace down, sinking it to the bottom of the world, where the water is so deep the Immortals can hide their grudges so that they can never be found, the only place where her light doesn’t reach. The Sea God was banished in the darkness, unable to even see the light of his recalcitrant betrothed. The sea was free again, but the Seacourt remained tainted, malicious.

When Donghyuck falls it’s an accident, of course, for no one would ever want the Prince of the Shar Islands to dive into the water in the proximity of the Seacourt, where the water is petty and slippery like the scorn of the Sea God and ice hands are always willing to drag even the most experts of the sailors directly to the lost palace.

Donghyuck doesn’t remember _how_ he falls, only that it’s his first trip to the Vale, his first trip at all in his short, sunkissed life. He’s excited, and his father is talking to the captain, and the sailors all laugh when they see him bounce around the deck, overexcited, his voice high like the chirping of a little bird. Donghyuck remembers he’s the first to see the whales.

It’s a pod of them, all giant geysers as tall as a mountain, endless tails that make water fall on the deck like spring rain. Donghyuck screams, excited, and runs at the bow, but the men are uneasy. The lookout screams something Donghyuck doesn’t understand and when he turns he realizes the whales are not chasing each other. They’re running away. And the ship is right in the middle of their path. That’s the last thought that crosses Donghyuck’s mind before the whole ship quakes, hit by something almost as big as it is, and Donghyuck’s feet lose grip on the ground. It happens so fast he doesn’t even have the time to scream.

The Shar are sailors, they’ve always been. Before the Goddess came and gave them the Southern Islands to inhabit, the Shar had been people of the sea - the people of the Sea God - sailing from place to place, pirates and raiders who were born and died on the water, sometimes without ever touching the land. Even after the dark religion was abandoned, their old sailing traditions lingered. Donghyuck learned how to swim before he could even learn how to walk.

When water punches him, Donghyuck doesn’t panic. It’s water, just water. He knows water like he knows his reflection in a mirror. He pushes the air out through his nose and opens his eyes, feeling salt pick at his irises. Somewhere in his young brain, instinct tells him to move his body and swim upwards, towards the light. He looks up. For a moment, the surface of the water is the roof of another world, a pale blue glass lid keeping him trapped. Then he hears the song.

Whales. Dozens of whales. So big, bigger than him, bigger than the ship. They swim past Donghyuck, barely noticing him and joggling him underwater. They’re fleeing, and Donghyuck’s eyes widen despite the sting of the salty water, as from the darkness, blurry and trembling, the light carried away by the whims of the water and refracted in incorporeal ghosts, something starts to emerge. Something old, and huge, something that is not evil but not good either. Something angry. Something.

The White Whale has been a bedtime story, one of Dongsoon’s favorites, as far as Donghyuck can remember. The mount of the Sea God, the guardian of the sunken palace, a ghost of the sea with bloody teeth and pale blue, all-seeing eyes. It destroys ships and boats, it eats people. It hides… in the dark, in the Seacourt. It only comes out during the cold season, when the snow is falling down and the Goddess is asleep, to unleash the fury of the Sea God on the vessels crossing the distance between the Islands and the Bale. That’s why no ship is allowed to leave the ports and cross the Seacourt in winter.

Oh, Donghyuck thinks. That’s what the other whales were running from. But it’s not right, it cannot be right. It’s summer and the Goddess is watching and the Sea God has been banished underwater. It’s not right, not right at all.

 _You shouldn’t be here,_ he thinks. _You can’t be here._

The White Whale swim closer, almost lazily. It’s so big Donghyuck can’t even quantify it, bigger than what his field of vision allows him to see. It stares at him, this little boy slowly sinking because he doesn’t even dare to move, and Donghyuck feels so tiny, so insignificant in front of this giant of the sea, that he can’t even muster fear. What is fear good for when he’s already dead? He just stares at the whale and the whale stares at him, a few meters under the surface, for a moment that stretches, as large as the old white whale, as large as the deep blue sea.

 _You can’t hurt me,_ he thinks, with everything he has. _You aren’t allowed to kill anyone before the first snow falls. Go away, go away!_

The sea laughs at him and the whale comes closer, close enough that Donghyuck can see his teeth, bigger than he’ll ever be.

_I’m the Prince of Shar Islands and I carry the blood of both the Goddess of the Sun and the Sea God, and I command you to go away!_

And the white whale stops as if distracted by something. For a moment it tilts its giant head, as if listening to a call, then it swims past Donghyuck, breaching the surface to breath before it dives back into the lightless abyss, taking its screech into deep. Only then Donghyuck realizes his lungs are bursting and his limbs are heavy and the light is calling. He comes back to life with a choked scream and the air feels cold on his face, the salt feels sticky on his skin, the world feels beautiful. He lets himself drift until a sailor reaches him and bring him back on board.

“That was the Sea God,” the sailors tell him when he wakes up, wet and cold and still feeling like he’s choking. The faces of the crew are whiter than the whale Donghyuck had seen. “Your Highness, the Sea God came to see you.”

Maybe it was the Sea God, maybe it was just an angry white whale that lives at the bottom of the ocean and only comes out to eat, but in the end it didn’t destroy the ship, nor did it eat Donghyuck. Perhaps Donghyuck really was too tiny. Perhaps the Goddess was watching over him. Perhaps the Sea God was watching over him. Donghyuck doesn’t know, and soon enough he will forget this conversation ever happened. The ship takes two days to dock in Cape Conk. Three days of journey later, Donghyuck sets foot in Dawyd for the first time.

(Donghyuck has yet to see five winters when he comes back from death and meets Minhyung of the Vale of the Giants.)

 

❃

 

It’s kind of ironic that the entirety of Donghyuck’s perception of Minhyung - the entirety of his relationship with Minhyung - was influenced so strongly by their first meeting, and Minhyung doesn’t even know he was meeting Donghyuck at all.

“Do you understand, Hyuckie? You have to be a very good actor. Our entire kingdom is counting on you.”

Donghyuck pouts and shakes his head up and down slowly. Blonde locks fall in front of his eyes for a moment and the little servant girls pick them up again, combing with her fingers before she braids them with golden threads and pink flowers.

“If someone finds out it’s you and not your sister, we’d all be in danger.”

Donghyuck isn’t even five years old yet and he doesn’t understand why is it so dangerous for him to be here.

Later, years later, he will realize how much his father had risked, going to a foreign country, to an enemy country, and taking his only son with him. If the King of the Vale had known, he could have killed them both, the king and the heir, leaving the throne vacant, weak. And yet, Donghyuck’s father had no other choice. Twenty years had passed since the last time the Empire had dared to attack the Vale, taking one of the mountain cities from them. Ten years had passed since the first, tentative suggestion of an alliance between the Vale and the Island. Ten years of bickering, of mistrust, ten years of hope. Princess Dongsoon was to be wed to Prince Minhyung, and the alliance was to be sealed in the presence of both princes, except Dongsoonie, that brave little lady, had snuck out in the middle of the night to catch starfishes with one of her handmaidens, and had caught a cold, three days before the departure. And the king had turned around and looked at Donghyuck, a desperate look in his eyes.)

The servant girl leaves and Donghyuck jumps down the stool. The long dress is tight and it feels strange on his skin, too slippery, like wearing something liquid. Donghyuck tries to stretch in it, but he stops when he feels something tear in the back. When he looks up, he sees a familiar face staring back at him in the mirror.

He and Dongsoon aren’t identical twins and their parents have said many times that, just because they look very similar now, they will do so for the rest of their life. And yet, right now the face pouting at Donghyuck from the other side of the mirror is Dongsoon’s face. Her curl lip, her quiet surprise, the flowers in her hair. Donghyuck and Dongsoon might not be identical twins, but this wouldn’t be the first time they switch places and fool everyone but their parents, and nor the King of the Vale nor his second son have ever seen Dongsoon. It’s only for a few weeks, Donghyuck thinks, and it’s gonna be easy.

It’s not.

 

❃

 

Prince Minhyung is pale and tiny, with stick legs and stick arms and a perpetual lost expression on his lips. He clings to his mother’s gown, only leaving it when she gently pushes him forward. He stumbles, stops right in front of Donghyuck, bows nervously. His hair bounces when he does that, and Donghyuck notices they’re so messy - not Donghyuck’s sweet waves but frizzy, nervous curls. When he comes up his cheeks are red. Donghyuck takes the hems of Dongsoon’s dress and curtseys like one of the court ladies taught him two days before he left. It comes out wobbly and thankfully the length of the dress hides the way he almost trips on his own feet. When he comes up, he’s as red as Minhyung is.

He’s vaguely aware their fathers are staring at them, but Minhyung doesn’t say anything else so Donghyuck keeps quiet as well.

“Minhyung, take the princess’ hand. She’s your fiancee now.”

Minhyung swallows and comes closer, acting like Donghyuck is a shark ready to tear him to pieces. He grabs Donghyuck’s hand and holds it between his own. His palms are cold and sweaty at the same time.

“I’m really happy to meet you,” he murmurs under his breath, really fast and really low.

“What?”

“I’m really…” Minhyung closes his eyes and scratches his head. He swallows again. “I’m really happy to meet you. I hope we can get along in the future.”

Donghyuck blinks, taken aback, but Minhyung is looking at him with so much expectation and some sort of reverent fear, that he can’t help but smile at him. _Relax,_ he wants to tell him. _There’s nothing to be afraid of here. Wait until you meet the real Dongsoon, she’s the scary one._

Minhyung jumps, startled, and then melts in the sweetest smile. His hand squeezes Donghyuck’s for a moment, almost as to say a silent _thank you_. People cheer. An alliance is signed.

 

❃

 

For the next three days, Minhyung and Donghyuck - Minhyung and Dongsoon - are inseparable. Minhyung is a scaredy-cat. He just started sword training and he hates it with everything he has. His hands are softer than Donghyuck’s, and his eyes turn as wide as saucers the first time Donghyuck ties his dress up in a knot at his hips, revealing the scarred knees underneath, and teaches him the basics.

“I’ve never met a girl like you,” he murmurs, after Donghyuck has disarmed him, and that’s when Donghyuck remembers he’s still Dongsoon. He blinks, caught in the web of his own lies, but only for a moment because he decides it doesn’t really matter. Everything Donghyuck does, Dongsoon could probably do better.

“You have not met many girls,” he says instead, tilting his head. The flower tiara he’s wearing, a gift from the Vale’s Queen, slides lopsided on one side and Minhyung fixes it with a focused expression.

“You’re right, Princess. I have not. I hope all the girls I meet are as funny as you are.”

Donghyuck beams at him and they scamper together to play tag in the gardens.

 

❃

 

The day Donghyuck leaves, Minhyung and his brother ride with them at the port. Donghyuck is wearing a dress for what is hopefully the last time in his life. Minhyung holds his hand to the docks, ignoring his brother’s cheeky remarks about how much he’s smitten with the Princess of the Islands.

They look at each other one last time.

“I don’t want you to go, it was funny playing with you.”

“I’ll come back next year,” Donghyuck says, although he will not. Dongsoon will, and if Dongsoon leaves Donghyuck will have to stay in the Islands. There must always be a Shar prince or princess in the Coraline.

“I’ll be waiting,” Minhyung murmurs. “I’m so happy I met you, Dongsoon. I hope you can present as an Omega or a Beta so we can get married.”

Then, before anyone can stop him, he leans over and lays a short kiss on Donghyuck’s cheek, shy of the corner of his mouth. When he draws back, Donghyuck feels himself flush so bright he almost sees red when he blinks.

 

❃

 

The continent is only a thin line at the end of the sky when Donghyuck tugs on his father’s sleeve. He has already changed into more comfortable clothes, not princess clothes and not even prince clothes, but sailor clothes, good for climbing ropes and hanging from the deck. (Not that anyone would let him, the incident of the Seacourt is still very vivid in everyone’s mind, including the way he almost died.)

“Ah, look at my heir!” the king exclaims. “You look like yourself again.”

“I always look like myself, dad.”

“Indeed, you do. You did very well, Donghyuck. I’m sorry I asked you to lie, but thanks to you we managed to forge an alliance with the Vale of the Giants. You acted like a real prince.”

Donghyuck pushes his chest out, full of pride.

“Say, did you like the prince? Do you think he will be good to Dongsoonie?”

“He’s fine, I guess? Can’t fight for shit.”

“Donghyuck!” The king warns, scandalized, making one of the sailors, the one with the dirtiest mouth and the foxy smile, who taught Donghyuck a whole new set of curses he didn’t know yet, chuckle. “He will learn, give him time. He just started training. You have an unfair advantage over him.”

They lean against the deck, looking down at the dolphins escorting the ship.

“Can I ask you something, dad?”

The king nods.

“Minhyung said he hopes I… I mean, Dongsoon… presents as an Omega or a Beta… So he can marry her… But why? What if she presents as an Alpha? Is it bad to be an Alpha?”

The king sends him a nervous glance. He almost fidgets. “No, Donghyuck, it’s not like that. It’s just that, when they get married, Minhyung and Dongsoon will have to make babies.”

Donghyuck blinks, confused. “Babies? They can make babies?”

He receives a chuckle and a pat on his head. “You’ll understand when you get older.”

“So Alphas cannot make babies?”

“Not with another Alpha, I fear. And it would still be very hard even if Minhyung ended up being a Beta like his brother. So let’s pray that our Dongsoonie presents as an Omega, that would be the easiest outcome for everyone.”

Donghyuck muses a little. The wind is blowing in his hair, taking them home. He tugs on his father’s sleeve again.

“Dad, dad.”

“What is it?”

“What if Minhyung presents as an Omega then? Can Dongsoon still marry him if she’s an Omega herself?”

The king sends him a questioning glance. “I guess not, but…”

“Then, can I marry Minhyungie? You said I’ll be an Alpha, didn’t you?”

His father looks at him in silence, too stunned to reply, and then he suddenly erupts in a fat, sincerely amused fit of laughter.

“Oh, Hyuckie, you’ll never stop amazing me. Of course you can, son, why not? If that boy presents as an Omega he can be all yours.”

Donghyuck nods, satisfied.

_Just present as an Omega, Minhyung. I will definitely be an Alpha. And then we can play together as much as we want._

 

❃

 

There is no sure way to tell whether a child is going to be an Alpha, a Beta or an Omega. But there are hints. Donghyuck does not know what these hints are, but apparently every hint points to him presenting as an Alpha, so as an Alpha he is raised. With a sword on his hands, with a bow and a quiver, with blood on his knees from how many times he fell and he got up again during training.

Dongsoon sits under the lemon trees and watches him practice fencing, a book perched on her knees. When he gasps for air, she gives him water. When he bleeds, she glares at the knight in charge of training the prince and drags her brother under the trees, sighs as she dabs his wounds with a handkerchief drenched with spirit she stole from the kitchen.

Everyone thinks Dongsoon is the perfect Omega, but no one is there to hear what she’s muttering under her breath as she tries to clean Donghyuck’s battle wounds. “Eunbin said she found out a secret passage through the dungeons that leads directly to the sea. Do you want to explore it with us?”

Donghyuck tilts his head to the side. “Can Jeno come?”

“If he must. But you two can’t slow us down.”

“As if you’d tell us no. Who is it that takes all the blame for you every time we get caught?”

“And who is it that always gets us caught?” she retorts. Donghyuck pulls a face and makes a high-pitched rendition of her complaint and she pours the whole bottle of alcohol on his knees, almost making him scream. “Tonight, after dinner. Please don’t wear your new clothes. We’re going to crawl in the mud.”

 

❃

 

The next summer, Dongsoon packs her prettiest clothes and leaves for the Vale to meet her betrothed - for the first time, although no one will ever know. The visit doesn’t last long. She’s back after three weeks, and the first thing Donghyuck asks is if she had liked Minhyung.

“He’s alright,” she answers. “A little boring. We didn’t have much to talk about. He’s a little like you, he trains all the time.”

Oh, _now_ he trains. He was so weak when Donghyuck first met him. But he wasn’t boring, he was quite alright. It’s only been one year, but one year for a five years old child lasts like an eternity, and Donghyuck can barely remember Prince Minhyung’s face.

“But is he better than me?” he asks, scooting closer to his sister to lay his head on her lap.

Dongsoon laughs. “Of course no, Hyuckie. You’re the very best.”

“I have to be. Dad said you can only find a good mate if you can prove you’re worthy of them. And I want to find the best mate.”

“Is that why you’re always training? Who are you trying to charm, Hyuckie? Jeno? Yangie?” Her eyes widen. “Should I also start training? To prove Minhyung of the Vale I’m worthy of him?”

Donghyuck tilts his head to the side as he thinks about it.

“Are you kidding me?” he says in the end. “He’s the one who needs to train to prove he’s worthy of you.”

 

❃

 

When Donghyuck is six, the queen mother gives birth to two little princes. They’re also twins, but unlike Donghyuck and Dongsoon they are absolutely identical, two mirror images of the same screaming baby. They call them Taeho and Taeyang, and Donghyuck and Dongsoon spend the whole winter carrying them around the palace and trying to get them to say their name first. (Taeyang’s first word is _mama_ ; Taeho is _Lu_ , the name of the queen’s domestic ocelot. After that, no one is able to get them to just _stop_ talking.)

When spring comes, the young princes can have entire conversations with their older brother and sister in a language only the four of them can understand, and the king approaches Donghyuck with a proposal.

“We have thought, your mother and I, that it would do you good to interact with your future brother-in-law. We never had a good relationship with our neighbors in the Vale but it’s up to the new generations to change that. And now that there are other heirs, there is no reason to keep you here while your sister visits Dawyd.”

Donghyuck’s eyes shine.

“Can I go with Dongsoon? Can I? Really?”

“Yes, but… Donghyuck? It will be the first time for everyone there meeting you as, well, you. And they can’t know they already met you before, do you understand? Act like you’ve never seen the Vale in your life.”

Donghyuck nods excitedly. He catches Dongsoon’s eyes on the other side of the room. She smiles.

 

❃

 

Minhyung is a little taller and a little more nervous and there’s a small braid on the side of his head - in the Islands they’d call it a wish-braid, growing a strand of hair to make a wish come true. Donghyuck will never get to ask what it meant, why was Minhyung growing and braiding that single strand, which wish was he trying to make come true, because Minhyung will cut the braid right after their first duel.

It was supposed to be a friendly duel, after all. Just two princes and wooden swords and half of the court of the Vale watching. And Donghyuck… Donghyuck likes Minhyung. And his father told him that an Alpha needs to show only his best side to people he likes. (“You have to prove you’re strong, strong enough to protect them.”)

And Donghyuck trained, just for this. He wanted to be strong. He wanted to be worthy.

He does his best. He wins.

And then he has to watch, sweat trickling down his arms and into the hilt of the sword, under the warm sun of June, as Prince Minhyung of the Vale of the Giants looks down, bites his bottom lip to keep it from trembling, his hands down in the dirt, the sword lying behind him after a fierce attack, and tries not to cry after being defeated in less than a minute in front of his father and the whole court.

Minhyung doesn’t talk to Donghyuck for the rest of their stay.

 

❃

 

Donghyuck doesn’t want to come back to the Vale again, but his father sends him with Dongsoon the following year too, and things don't improve. Minhyung doesn’t like him, and Donghyuck cannot even spend time with Dongsoon because she’s always with Minhyung.

The next summer, he tries to convince his father to let him stay at home, where at least he can play with Jeno and Yangyang, but the king doesn’t relent.

“You need to become friends with Prince Minhyung. He will be family one day.”

Donghyuck doesn’t want to Minhyung to be family if he has to be an ass about losing to Donghyuck. It’s not Donghyuck’s fault if he’s better than him. Donghyuck pouts and stomps his feet on the ground, but he still sails towards the Vale because he’s a good prince and he does as he’s told (most of the times).

Donghyuck’s and Dongsoon's eighth name day falls during this trip.

It’s a beautiful day. Summer has just begun but it’s not too hot. It’s windy and fresh and the air smells like grass and sunlight. Dongsoon has promised Donghyuck she would stay with him, just today, because it’s their birthday, but when Donghyuck jumps on the bed to wake her up, she answers with a groan.

“It seems like the princess ate something spoiled,” the royal physician says, after examining Dongsoon’s tongue. She retches and Donghyuck has to look at the ceiling as the doctor guides her head towards a bucket in a corner. Disgusting. He had told her not to eat those suspicious lilac berries, but does Dongsoon ever listen to him? No, stubborn as a donkey.

“So what do I do now?” he asks, trying not to sound too miserable. “It’s our birthday and you went and got yourself food poison and now I’ll have to spend it all alone, with no friends.”

“Donghyuck, have some mercy, I’m dying here. Go and find Minhyung and play with him.”

“Minhyung hates me!”

“You rile him up all the time! Just be nice to him and he’ll be nice to you!”

She stops talking and gestures for him to give her the bucket again, which he does quickly, leaving the room before she can empty the rest of her stomach inside it.

Minhyung is outside, in the gardens. He’s playing with a tall kid who comes from the lands beyond the border, the son of the Vale’s most feared warlord and general. Yukhei is nice but he’s also Mark’s best friend, which means he has the duty not to like Donghyuck (though he can be pretty funny when Minhyung is not around.) Donghyuck walks under the treehouse and listens to them laughing for a moment. He considers going back and spending his birthday alone or with Dongsoon, but that would make him more miserable and he’d rather be humiliated than miserable. He clears his throat.

“Hey,” he calls, “can I play with you?”

There’s rustling from inside, whispering. Then, Yukhei’s head comes out of the tiny window. He sends Donghyuck an apologetic look.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness, there’s not enough space up here for the three of us.”

It stings, because he knows for sure Dongsoon was up there with Yukhei and Minhyung three days ago, and she didn’t say it was cramped. Donghyuck feels humiliated _and_ miserable, but he still looks up.

“I’m tiny, I won’t take much space. Or you can come down and we can play here.”

Yukhei looks inside for a moment. There’s more rustling and more whispering.

“Listen, Your Highness, it’s really… Perhaps you can go back and play with one of the servants?”

Yukhei tries to be nice about it, but Donghyuck is not in the mood to appreciate it.

“Yes, I could. Or you could tell your prince that there’s no need to act like such a loser just because I keep beating him.”

Yukhei is suddenly yanked away from the window and Mark’s face appears. His pale face is red with rage. He looks down at Donghyuck with nothing but utter disgust.

“Which part didn’t you understand? I don’t want to play with you. No one wants to play with you! Go away!”

“You’re not even a prince,” he screams out loud. “A real prince would be able to handle defeat with grace. Or maybe a real prince wouldn’t be defeated so easily.”

“A real prince would have friends, Donghyuck. And you don’t, not here.”

And with that, Minhyung disappears inside the treehouse again. Donghyuck stands there, trembling, hands balled into fists, for a long moment.

“What a…”

Ten’s voice echoes in his head. _If you want to curse, better do it in your own mind or your father will have my head on a golden platter, young prince._ So Donghyuck curses, in his mind, and he makes sure he uses all the words he heard from Ten. _What an asshole. What a fucking asshole. What a vermin, what a lowly coward. Piece of shit._

Donghyuck sniffles. _Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry_. If he cries, Minhyung of the Vale of the Giants will have won and Minhyung of the Vale of the Giants cannot win. He will never win. Donghyuck will make sure of it.

He looks up at the treehouse - really, calling it treehouse is a stretch, it’s just a bunch of wooden planks barely held together by ropes that circle around the main structure only to fall down the trunk in a tangle of knots. He bites his bottom lip to stop the tears. He picks the closest end of a rope. He starts pulling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you have read chapter 2 you already know what happened to that treehouse.  
> also the only reason they were able to pull that donghyuck as dongsoon trick off is that donghyuck was literally 4yo and no one had ever seen him or dongsoon before.  
> edit: i know mark seems a little bit like a brat here but this is donghyuck's pov, he's not gonna be mature enough to admit he also was a brat to mark (also continuously humiliating him in front of his father was not necessary but hyuck is like 6/7/8yo, so not old enough to pick on those social clues, just like mark was kinda young and didn't realize donghyuck wanted to be friends and refusing was mean)
> 
> stay tuned for yy in ch24 <3


	24. xxiv. (interlude) vines tangling the ruins of our ending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all I'm very sorry to be so late. The semester is over and I will try to go back to weekly update. Let's see how it goes between this and next week.  
> \- This chapter is only meant to let you peek in what was Donghyuck's and Yangyang's relationship back then. It cannot, absolutely, be a complete summary of what happened because there's no way I could've done that in less than 5k. I tried to pick the most meaningful moments and I tried to be as brief as I could so I could write more scenes. It wont answer all your questions but hopefully it will help you understand Donghyuck's character a little more. Also I love Yangyang so much, and I wish I could show him in a better light but there was no time for that in this POV. This is not the last we see of him, I promise.  
> \- I haven't written in so long and it's rushed and probably sloppy, but this is the best I can offer right now. I'll try to be back in the game asap so that when I actually go back to the main timeline I'll feel more sure of myself.  
> \- Thank you if you have waited, or sent me a cc, or dmed, or left a comment, or anything. I'm slowly working on replying all the comments, I've been super sick so that also slowed me down, but you really give me strength always. This semester has been extremely harsh on me, sometimes I still haven't given up, and I know it has very little to do with ficwriting but so many of you wished me the best for school and it really helped. Thank you ;;
> 
> \- WARNINGS: mentions of underage sex! (They're almost seventeen in that scene, and even though there's no actual rated content in this chapter given their age I find it very unlikely that teenagers on the brink of adulthood would keep their hands to themselves)  
> \- [chapter title inspiration](https://avolitorial.tumblr.com/post/162609280287/from-translation-by-anne-carson-expansions-on)  
> \- Free promo for these beautiful art concepts [1](https://twitter.com/127dh/status/1204870666882834438) and [2](https://twitter.com/127dh/status/1203401596488605696) by @127dh. Thank you so much <3<3<3

Yangyang is faster than Donghyuck, and braver, and a way better sailor. He laughs quite hard the first time Donghyuck is hit on the head by a rope he had failed to fasten, then he smiles smugly, showing his pink tongue to mock Donghyuck. “What a prince,” he says. “You better learn fast, Your Highness.”

(What a brat. Donghyuck hates him. Donghyuck loves him.)

Donghyuck rants to Jeno for three weeks before he gives in - they both give in - and befriend the little lord from the Starpoint, the smallest of the Shar Islands, the last scrap of land before the storms of the big sea. Starpoint leads the way for all the ships of the Islands who sail towards the Burnt Lands, the biggest trading partner of the Islands.

The Burnt Lands are, despite the ominous name, not burnt at all, but green and flourishing and shining with gold. That’s what Yangyang tells Donghyuck, as they sit together in one of the caves under the Coraline. Eunbin and Dongsoon have disappeared underwater, looking for sea urchins - “Miss Seulgi says that only true women are brave enough to eat raw sea urchins, and we are true women!” - Yeeun is looking over them and Jeno is curling like a cat in a patch of warmth, the sun pouring freely on the porous stone from a breach in the ceiling of the cave.

Donghyuck has never been to the Burnt Lands, but Yangyang has. Jeno has too, but he was too small to remember. Donghyuck is kind of jealous of them.

“It’s nothing special,” Yangyang says, when he sees Donghyuck pouting. “It’s just, you know, a lot cooler than the Islands. Wish you could see it too, but I guess the best place for little princes is their castle.”

Donghyuck bristles and fumes and only Jeno’s soft voice makes him come back to his own senses.

“Play nice, Hyuckie.”

“Yeah, play nice, Hyuckie. And maybe I’ll let you ride on my junk!”

“Your raft, you mean?”

“Hey, I built her with my own hands!”

That’s a lie and they all know it. Yangyang borrowed it from Ten, who’s one of the best sailors of the Islands and would never say no to his little cousin. But Donghyuck is the prince, and Ten would never tell him no either. (Well, he would, he totally would, but not if Donghyuck manages to beat Yangyang. The winner takes it all, like in the law of the old Shar pirates.)

Donghyuck jumps up, startling both Yangyang and Jeno.

“Race you!” he chirps. “The first one to touch that rock peeking from there can keep the raft, what do you think?”

Yangyang is standing in front of him on the slimy rock in less than an instant. Dongsoon and Eunbin have resurfaced, and they stop squeezing water out of their long braids like annoyed mermaids to watch at the two boys, suddenly interested. Yeeun looks between the two kids, torn between stopping the prince from doing something dangerous and enjoying the show.

“Jeno, would you count?” Dongsoon asks.

Jeno nods. Donghyuck and Yangyang inch closer to the edge of the rock. They exchange a heated glare. They’re seven years old and nothing matters except this moment. (It’s one of those life-changing moments. Donghyuck could win and he could get the boat and he could leave tomorrow, to the Burnt Lands, to a world of salty winds and cursed sun and adventure. He could taste freedom on the tip of his tongue and he could love it. He’d still present as an Omega, and Dongsoon would still be an Alpha. She will lead the kingdom, he will be an explorer. It could happen.)

Jeno starts counting.

“Three… Two… One…”

Everything could happen in a moment of infinite possibilities, but Yangyang is faster than Donghyuck, and braver, and he deserves to keep the boat because he’s a way better sailor. Truly, he needs to be, to come alive out of the storm that is Donghyuck of the Southern Islands.

 

❃

 

Minhyung almost manages to win against Donghyuck for the first time when they’re thirteen. It’s not completely devoid of merit - Donghyuck slips, but he slips because he’s been dueling with Minhyung for so long he feels dizzy, and that’s all on Minhyung’s newly found ability to keep up with him - but Donghyuck still feels proud of himself for recovering fast enough to point the tip of his sword at Minhyung’s throat just as Minhyung’s sword hits his leg. In a real fight, Donghyuck would probably lose a leg, but Minhyung would already be dead. It’s Donghyuck’s victory. Barely, so but still a victory.

Donghyuck carries the bruise on his leg back to the Coraline when he comes back, together with a memory of Minhyung, pristine, calm, collected Minhyung, scrunching his face in anger and frustration, his big black eyes narrowing as he glared at Donghyuck from the dust, from the ground, defeated once again.

Someone taps Donghyuck’s shoulder, insistent, almost annoying, and the memory disappears. Donghyuck finds himself staring blankly at the tendrils of fog staining the big blue sea in front of the terrace of Yangyang’s room in Starpoint.

“You still with us, Hyuck?”

Donghyuck turns to see his best friends staring at him, Jeno perched on the armchair with his chin on his knees and his cards spread in front of his mouth. Yangyang’s cards are laid on the table face down, and he’s leaning over the sofa to pull at Donghyuck’s shoulder. Their eyes meet and Donghyuck lets out a horrified sound when he realizes Yangyang is peeking at his cards. He receives back a cheeky smile.

“You spaced out for so long Jeno had the time to go to the toilet. We all saw your cards.”

“I saw Jeno leave for the toilet, I only spaced out for like, one minute until he came back? And you still shouldn’t have peeked?”

Jeno laughs. “Let Hyuckie be. He had to say goodbye to his archnemesis only a few days ago. He must be feeling hatesick.”

“Ah, right, Soonie’s betrothed. Was he the one who maimed you so badly?” Yangyang asks, pointing to the big bruise on Donghyuck’s leg. “I thought you said you were so much better than him that he would never be able to even touch you with his sword, didn’t you?”

Donghyuck blushes.

“He improved, kinda. Still no match for me though.”

“I would like to meet him, this mysterious Prince Minhyung. You talk about him so much it almost sounds like you’re in love with him.”

Donghyuck throws the cards in Yangyang’s face. “Take it back! That’s disgusting! He’s such a prick, oh Goddess, never in my life!”

He realizes Yangyang was baiting him only when the boy explodes in a fit of excited giggles. “Oh, Hyuck, you’re too easy, too, too easy.”

Donghyuck looks for support in Jeno’s eyes, but his friend is too busy staring at Donghyuck’s cards instead, all scattered on the table. When he looks up and catches Donghyuck’s eyes, he shrugs, as if saying, _you threw them on the table, didn’t you?_

Traitors. Donghyuck is surrounded solely by traitors.

“But really, you should introduce us, one day.”

Like hell he would. It’s already enough that Jeno has seen how pathetically worked up Minhyung of the Vale of the Giants can make Donghyuck, and he constantly teases Donghyuck about it. And Jeno is the nice one. Yangyang would probably befriend Mark and rub their friendship in Donghyuck’s face. Oh no, no no.

“Sorry Yangle,” Donghyuck says. “He’s kind of a taken man. You should ask Dongsoon to introduce the two of you, not me.”

Oh, like hell Donghyuck is going to introduce Minhyung to any-fucking-one. The time they spend sparring together is already too short as it is, and if there’s something Yangyang hates it is fencing. He would find other games to play, other adventures to live, would convince Minhyung to stop indulging Donghyuck, and that cannot absolutely happen. Beating Minhyung into the ground, seeing his red cheeks, his lucid eyes, his dark hair all messy and matted and covered in dust, seeing him unable to keep his composure, almost growling at Donghyuck, is actually very funny. And it’s something that belongs only to them, to Donghyuck and Minhyung.

Yangyang wouldn’t understand. He doesn’t like swords and duels, Yangyang likes boats and islands and storms. Maybe Minhyung would like those things too, if they met. Yangyang can be very convincing. And Donghyuck won’t take any chances.

They go back inside before it can start raining.

 

❃

 

Yangyang is Donghyuck’s first kiss. They’re fourteen and it tastes like salt and choking because they were competing to see who would be able to hold his breath for longer and Donghyuck almost died and Yangyang has to go down on him, mouth-to-mouth, and Donghyuck is saved but he also coughs and fake-retches and says, “Please don’t ever do that again.”

Yangyang scoffs. “You should be honored. These same lips kissed Yeeun last week.”

Donghyuck straightens. He tries to brush the sand out of his cheek but only ends up smearing more on his face, from jaw to ear.

“Yeeun, really? Did you pay her?”

Yangyang pushes him. “That’s so funny, Hyuck. Who have you kissed then, hm? Jeno?”

Donghyuck blushes violently and Yangyang snickers. The wind is harsh against the stony beach, quickly drying the dampness on their skin and leaving behind salt that pulls at the thin hair on their forearms mercilessly. Donghyuck’s lips are chapped, his lungs charred by seawater, his voice crack when he catches Yangyang’s eyes.

“Shut up,” he mutters.

Yangyang’s eyes widen.

“Wait, you’ve never kissed anyone? Not even Jeno?”

Donghyuck looks down. The sand is hot but his skin is hotter right now. His fingers scratch against the ground, helplessly trying to find something to hold on, but there’s nothing. Tiny stones slip past his fingers, but the sand sticks to his palm. He can feel it in his hair, in his mouth, scratching between the skin of his back and the dampness of his shirt. His body still aches from the last time he met stupid Minhyung from the Vale. The air fizzles, charged with power right before the storm.

“It’s kind of difficult when I’m, you know, always training. And you know I’m not, like, engaged, and…”

“That’s the point! You are not engaged, you should enjoy yourself! Right now! Come here!”

Donghyuck squeals. “What?”

“I’ll teach you.”

Eyes wide, lips parted. The wind is blowing, giving the impression that it’s not that hot, but Donghyuck can already feel the skin of his nose crackling. He can see the skin of Yangyang’s nose crackling, his cheeks are pink and tomorrow they’ll be red and in a few days they’ll turn the color of honed bronze.

Donghyuck hesitates just a moment too much, enough to see the beginning of a snicker pulling at Yangyang’s mouth. He bites his bottom lip, nostrils flaring.

“I don’t need any teaching,” he says, before he grabs Yangyang’s face to kiss him, just as the first raindrops fall like tears around them.

 

❃

 

Jeno is actually the smartest among them, the one who notices things and keeps them for himself. Donghyuck is aware of his lingering glances, eyes zooming in on Donghyuck’s bruised lips and Yangyang’s unfastened buttons. He knows something is going on but he doesn’t question Donghyuck. Doesn’t ask him if he really likes Yangyang, if he knows what he’s getting into. Not until Yangyang presents as an Omega.

No one expects it, really. No one.

Maybe Yangyang did, though. Maybe that was always the plan. The marriage proposal arrives from the Lord of Starpoint while Donghyuck is out in the courtyard, training despite the heavy humidity and the clouds pregnant with rain. He has practiced the whole day, enough to have blisters in his hands and not being able to feel them, enough that he doesn’t hear Yangyang arrive and almost hits him with the pommel of the sword.

“Goddess, stop pointing that thing at me!” Yangyang says, waving Donghyuck’s sword away like it was an annoying fly.

Yangyang looks different. Donghyuck can’t quite put his fingers on it, but there’s something about him. Something that is off. It’s Yangyang who leans closer, and it’s only when his lips brush against Donghyuck’s, that Donghyuck realizes and quickly jumps back.

“We can’t! Not anymore! You’ve presented now.” He says it with the most scandalized tone he can muster and Yangyang scoffs and looks up, at the sky.

“We spent the last six months sucking face and now it becomes a problem? It’s still me.”

“Well, it doesn’t work like that. Not for me, at least. Your parents are going to marry you off soon and I don’t want to be the other guy.”

Yangyang scoffs.

“Do I mean so little to you? Aren’t you ready to challenge my betrothed for my hand?”

Donghyuck resists the urge to push him.

“This is not funny, Yangle. You’re an adult now.”

The smile dies on Yangyang’s face.

“I am.” He looks at Donghyuck, and there’s no sun but his hair still shines like copper, his eyes almost gold. He looks like he’s on his way to travel towards the end of the world, like a pirate thirsting for treasures. That’s how he’s always looked, to Donghyuck. Like someone who will find gold. He can’t believe he’s going to be married off instead, like a bird in a cage. Unlike in the continent, Omegas in the Shar are allowed to marry whoever they want, but a lord is still a lord. Omega or Alpha, he must do what his parents choose for him.

“My parents have already chosen my spouse,” Yangyang says, still uncharacteristically serious.

Donghyuck doesn’t ask who. He asks, “Do you like them?”

Yangyang’s lips part in a smile again. His eyes soften while he stares at Donghyuck.

“Oh, yes, I am indeed quite smitten with them.”

 

❃

 

Jeno finds Donghyuck in the aviary, feeding bread crumbs to a plucked sea sparrow seeking refuge from the rain.

“What do you think about this?”

Donghyuck shrugs, tickles the little creature’s throat.

“Does it make a difference? My parents have already said yes.”

The frown he receives is enough to make him break eye contact and look down sheepishly. The bird meets his eyes, tilting her tiny head to the side.

“It does make a difference. Yangyang is our friend. And he clearly likes you. And you clearly like someone else.”

The sea sparrow nips at Donghyuck’s fingers. She’s too tiny for now, but one day she’ll be able to draw blood. Donghyuck really hopes that when it happens she’ll be far away from here.

“That does make even less of a difference.”

Donghyuck tries to keep the bitterness out of his voice. Judging from Jeno’s soft sigh, he fails.

“It does make a difference. It’s your feelings we’re talking about.”

“Feelings? There’s not enough of them to be called feelings, I’m afraid.”

It’s not the first time they have this conversation, but Jeno knows better than to push when it comes to Donghyuck and his wandering mind. It’s not enough that he had to be so stupidly smitten with someone who doesn’t like him at all, but that person is also taken. Donghyuck knows a lost battle when he sees one.

“Yangyang genuinely likes you, Hyuck. He’s liked you since we were kids.”

“Yangyang doesn’t like me… He constantly annoys me, all the time. We just, you know, we just make out sometimes. It’s not that deep.”

It’s nice, Donghyuck must admit. Kissing Yangyang. He’s a good kisser, he taught Donghyuck well. But it’s not like Yangyang has been treating Donghyuck in a different way since they started fooling around. They’re still friends, nothing more.

“How can you be so blind? He’s out there convincing your parents to let him marry you. Donghyuck! Don’t be obtuse! He likes you that way, and you don’t.”

“That, again, doesn’t make a difference. You know I have no hopes with… anyone else. I like Yangyang, maybe not the way he likes me, but I like him. And he likes me. There have been worse weddings.”

“Do you realize that at some point you will have to… you know?” Jeno blushes, and Donghyuck blinks, confused, before he realizes what Jeno is talking about and his cheeks quickly mirror Jeno’s scarlet flush. “If you present as an Alpha, I mean. If you don’t, marrying Yangle won’t really be a problem. Nor will making babies with him.”

Donghyuck feels like his face is going to burst into flames.

“I mean, what do you want me to present as? A Beta?”

He tries to deflect, but Jeno doesn’t let him.

“Do you at least like him that way?”

It’s easy to look down and avoid Jeno’s inquisitive glance.

“I don’t know,” Donghyuck mutters. “I haven’t even presented yet, isn’t it a little too early? Besides, what can we do right now? That fool went and got himself betrothed to me without even asking me first.”

“Would you have said yes if he had asked?”

Donghyuck bites down a sigh. He would have. Yangyang is smart and funny, diplomatic when he wants, snarky enough to get people to respect him. Charming even. More than everything else, Yangyang is familiar. They’ve known each other their whole life. Donghyuck would be able to make him happy. He would make Donghyuck happy, too.

That’s why Donghyuck cannot understand Jeno and the way he furrows his eyebrows.

“You’re my best friend, Hyuck, but Yangle is my friend too. You’re just humoring him, and he deserves better than that. He deserves the truth. Talk to him, at least he’ll know what he’s getting himself into.”

Donghyuck nods absent-mindedly. The little bird he was feeding scampers towards the edge of the railings. She seems willing to challenge the rain. Donghyuck lets her go.

Talk to Yangyang? And tell him what? There is nothing to tell. Donghyuck doesn’t like anyone. And, in time, he will learn to like Yangyang.

 

❃

 

The rain knocks against the glass, soft and insistent and somehow still polite.

“He’s not that special, the Prince of the Vale.”

The words are warm against Donghyuck’s ear, and velvety, and so, so annoying. Donghyuck groans and pushes Yangyang back.

“Why would you talk about him while we’re together, that’s gross.”

Yangyang laughs and sits back on his heels. His lips are bruised, his hair a mess. A naughty light twinkles in his eyes.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness. But considering you haven’t taken your eyes off him the whole day I thought you would’ve liked it.”

 _That’s not true,_ Donghyuck wants to say, but he’s known Yangyang long enough to recognize one of his baits. He’s known Yangyang long enough to recognize when he’s angry and wants to fight. And yet, Donghyuck doesn’t want to fight him. He only wants to fight stupid Minhyung and his stupid big eyes. Which, in itself, is quite worrisome.

“So, if you don’t want to talk about the Prince of the Vale, what do you want to do?”

Yangyang’s voice is still dangerously sharp, but hands are soft on Donghyuck’s hips, his lips warm on Donghyuck’s neck, and he’s too close, too suddenly, too much. Nausea swells in Donghyuck’s chest and he pushes his fiance away.

“We can’t,” he says, trying to keep his voice steady.

“Why not? That’s why I came with you to the Vale! For once we don’t have the usual crowd of babysitters and tutors and guards around us, this is the only chance we have to do this.”

“We’re going to get married anyway, why are you in such a hurry?” he asks.

“Why are you not in a hurry? It’s just sex, Donghyuck, it’s not a sin. Even Jeno has already gotten past kissing.”

“Well, then maybe you should go and ask Jeno to help you!”

They don’t fight often, Yangyang and Donghyuck, but when they do it’s a mess. They’re both too prideful, they’re both too competitive. Yangyang loves fiercely, this Donghyuck has come to know after one year of engagement. Yangyang loves shamelessly and deeply and unforgivingly. But Donghyuck… Donghyuck loves Yangyang like the sun loves a flower. The same way he loves any other flower. And sometimes it’s not enough.

Yangyang throws a pillow in Donghyuck’s face and gets up. His face is scarlet, more embarrassment than excitement at this point, and Donghyuck doesn’t know what to do to comfort him. He just listens to the sound of the door slamming shut and he closes his eyes, breathes deeply through his nose trying to calm the riptide in his chest. Someone comes and knocks, telling him to come down for dinner. Donghyuck tells them to leave him alone. He keeps his eyes closed, listens to the whispers of the rain.

When the door opens again, it’s late. The sun has come down beyond the clouds and the ceiling beyond Donghyuck’s eyelids is now completely dark. The footsteps are soft on the carpet, and there are only three people who would dare to enter Donghyuck’s room without knocking. Jeno, who’s currently on the Islands, too much land and sea away. Dongsoon, who’s probably sitting next to her betrothed at dinner. Yangyang.

The bed dips next to Donghyuck, the warmth of another body engulfing him.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed it.”

Donghyuck sucks in a shaky sob. He blindly finds Yangyang’s hand and holds it.

“I’m sorry too,” he replies. “I know it’s really important to you, but I just… can’t.”

Yangyang’s arms sneak around him and Donghyuck squeezes his eyes shut.

“You know I don’t really care, right? It’s normal to not… feel anything until you present. It was very insensitive of me to keep asking you to do stuff with me if you’re not ready.”

“What if I’m never ready?” Donghyuck asks, in a small voice. “What if I just don’t present? It’s so late, you presented last year, and Jeno presented a few months ago, and it’s just me and Dongsoon at this point. What if we just… What if I’m not an Alpha, Yangle? What if there’s something wrong with me and I’m just never… good at it?”

“Hey, calm down little prince. You will present, baby, everyone presents at some point. You just need to take your time.”

“Easy for you to say, you’re the one whose body is functioning just fine!”

“Your body is perfectly okay, Hyuck. Everything will be alright. You know I love you, right?”

Yangyang’s fingers scratch against Donghyuck’s sternum. Donghyuck pushes back, curling in Yangyang’s warmth. It’s easy to believe Yangyang’s words when they’re like this, in the little fort of pillows and blankets that Donghyuck has built in the unfamiliar room he was assigned in the royal palace of Dawyd. But once he gets out, Donghyuck will still be a Crown Prince that at sixteen years old has never felt a single lick of attraction towards his fiance, or anyone at all. And how can he produce an heir, how can he be the prince the Islands deserve, if he can’t get his traitorous body to work?

“I love you too,” he whispers, under his breath, hoping the rain can swallow the obvious lie in his words.

 

❃

 

Donghyuck waits for Minhyung to come until the sun disappear behind the dark clouds at the horizon. He can feel the curious glances of the soldiers, trying to busy themselves with drills so they can pretend they’re not staring at the foreign prince.

Eventually, Yukhei’s boisterous laughter fills the clearance, and after a moment the man himself appears, holding a training sword in his left hand. It takes him a moment to see Donghyuck, and his eyes widen when he recognizes him.

“Your Highness! Why did you grace us with your presence?”

Donghyuck scoffs. Despite his best efforts to dislike Yukhei, the boy is too nice to actually hold a grudge against him. (Besides, all of Donghyuck’s strong emotions are reserved for one boy and that boy only. Speaking of the devil…)

“I was waiting for your prince, Minhyung told me to meet him here this morning.”

Yukhei frowns. “Minhyung? I don’t think so, he was meeting your sister this morning.”

“Yangyang… I mean, Lord Liu told me, they talked yesterday at dinner.”

Yukhei scratches his head. “You can go and look for him then. If he hasn’t come out yet he’s probably still with Princess Dongsoon.”

Donghyuck waves his goodbye and runs back into the palace, the flaps of his vest jumping around him at every step like golden sparklers. One of the maids points him towards one of the towers, and he ignores the guards’ perplexed faces as he runs up until he reaches the second prince’s chambers.

He opens the door, a mean name on the top of his tongue, and the voice gets stuck in his throat. His hand twitches against the doorframe, and yet he cannot take it back. It’s stuck to the wood, just like Donghyuck’s feet are stuck to the marble floor.

It’s bright like the day, crystal clear, that Donghyuck is not supposed to be there. It’s in the soft, hushed tones Minhyung is using to talk to his sister, a voice the Prince of the Vale never used with Donghyuck - probably never will. It’s in the way Minhyung’s hand shivers against Dongsoon’s chest, and the image burns itself in Donghyuck’s retinas. He feels hot, sticky hot, and cold, and he wants to leave but he can’t. Minhyung pushes Dongsoon against the pillows and leans down, and Donghyuck closes his eyes, terrified, but he can still hear the sounds they make, humid and squeaky, he can still hear the “I love you,” Minhyung whispers, almost as if he had screamed it.

It’s disgusting. It’s utterly, devastatingly disgusting.

He bolts.

(It’s not at the end of the stairs, nor when he’s out of the tower, it’s only when Donghyuck reaches his assigned room that he realizes. It’s not disgusting, it’s not disgusting at all.)

 

❃

 

Donghyuck waits until the rain starts to let himself cry. He sits on the balcony, thinks about how nice Minhyung of the Vale of the Giants could kiss him, how his stupid, clumsy hands would feel on his collarbones, and cries. Up above, the sky thunders and wails with him.

It’s still raining when Yangyang comes in. A storm that comes from the sea and makes its way towards the valley carried by lively spring winds.

Yangyang sits next to Donghyuck on the wet bench. He doesn’t look at him. Donghyuck only steals a glance, but there’s too much water in his eyes to know what face Yangyang is making.

“I was afraid, you know, of many things. Of you presenting as a Beta and your parents breaking the engagement. Of another proposal coming from, I don’t know, a princess of the Wild Lands, a more convenient partner than me. I was afraid of Jeno, for so long. And yet… Minhyung of the Vale of the Giants? Is that my rival? That’s even crueler, and many things you are, Donghyuck, but I never thought you cruel.”

“I’m sorry,” Donghyuck mutters. “It’ll go away, I know it will. I just need a little time.”

“A little time? How long has this been going on?” Yangyang asks.

 _Too long. Not long enough._ Donghyuck doesn’t answer. He doesn’t know what to say.

“Did you ever love me?”

“I do,” he whispers, “you know I do.”

“Do you love me the way I love you? Do you love me the way you love him?”

The pattering of the rain drowns Donghyuck’s raspy breath, but not his wet, “I’m sorry.”

Yangyang slams the door shut when he leaves. Donghyuck remains alone. He listens to the storm.

 

❃

 

Donghyuck doesn’t say goodbye to Minhyung when he leaves. He doesn’t care if it’s rude, he doesn’t care about anything at all. He doesn’t - he can’t bear to look at Minhyung right now. He feigns a headache and claims the left side of the chariot. Yangyang claims the right side. They don’t look at each other.

It rains on the way to the harbor. Dongsoon sits between Donghyuck and Yangyang, looking between the two of them. Donghyuck meets her eyes, but refuses to say anything. Not this time, he can’t. He can’t.

Minhyung will make her happy, of this he is sure. Minhyung doesn’t deserve her, of this he has always been sure. Now? Not so much. He would like to be in her place, even just for a moment, with everything he has. But Yangyang now hates him, and Yangyang has been on Donghyuck’s side for his whole life, and now he’s not. Now he’s sitting on the other side of the chariot, looking outside, looking angry. Yangyang has never been this angry at Donghyuck. Yangyang has never been hurt.

 _It’s my fault,_ Donghyuck realizes. How many people need to suffer for the whims of one spoiled boy? Minhyung was never his, he was Dongsoon’s, and Donghyuck wanted him, and it ruined everything. Yangyang was always his, and Donghyuck didn’t want him, and it ruined everything. _It’s time to make things right. I will forget about you, Minhyung of the Vale of the Giants. Be it the last thing I do before I present._

The road is muddy because of the storm, so they only arrive at the harbor three days later. On the same day, a messenger comes on a fast brown horse. He bears a letter that will travel with them on the ship headed towards the Coraline. Minhyung of the Vale of the Giants just presented as an Alpha. Minhyung of the Vale of the Giants is no more. The prince's name is now Mark, Mark of the Vale of the Giants, the new Crown Prince.

 _Mark of the Vale of the Giants_ , Donghyuck thinks. _An Alpha._

At least this put an end to any and every secret hope Donghyuck might have harbored of them eventually ending up together, in a far-fetched, dream-like fantasy in which Minhyung presented as an Omega and married Donghyuck instead.

_No, Goddess, let this be the end._

Mark of the Vale of the Giants can go fuck himself with his sword. Donghyuck already fell in love with him once and it ruined his whole life. He will not make the same mistake again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's only one Donghyuck POV chapter left before we go back to the main timeline. Yes, it's the one where he presents.  
> If everything goes well, we'll see each other next week!
> 
> I hope you're spending these holidays well, happy new year everyone ❤


	25. xxv. (interlude) this distant land, this present ache

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all spent a nice winter break and I wish you the best for the new year!  
> I said this would be the last interlude chapter but it was too long and I split it in two parts. Next update will come hopefully in a couple of days, maybe on Wednesday or Thursday (unless I start adding scenes, which is possible).  
> I don't think I need to repeat it if you've gotten here, but this is an A/B/O fic so there will be mentions of A/B/O related themes like presenting, heats or ruts. Make sure you're comfortable with the content before you start reading.  
> As usual, thank you so much for the support <3 I can't wait to go back to the main timeline but I hope you like this interlude and the next one too ~
> 
> \- [chapter title inspiration](https://avolitorial.tumblr.com/post/161109604282/from-translation-by-anne-carson-expansions-on)  
> \- Songs for this chapter is Lying to the Mirror by Gabrielle Aplin and Breathe by Fleurie ([playlist](https://twitter.com/aprilclaws/status/1156324062047670272))  
> \- Free promo for the second part of the [looks from honeymouthed](https://twitter.com/yaori94/status/1212851080742264838) by @yaori94

Donghyuck’s favorite arrows have red and golden feathers on their tails. They’re sneaky weapons, light enough to hold their own against the wind but a little stubborn. You have to be careful with them, Donghyuck’s archery teacher would say when he let Donghyuck shoot with them. If you don’t have a strong will, they will make the choice for you, and a good archer never lets the arrows choose.

Donghyuck is a good archer, but sometimes he likes to let the arrows choose. They’re his arrows, after all, he trusts them to choose well.

Today, though, even his arrows mock him. The feathers are slippery under his hands. Donghyuck tries their thickness against his palm and shakes his head at the feeling. There’s nothing wrong with them, and yet they do feel wrong, which only means something is wrong with him.

He flexes his fingers in a half-assed attempt to get rid of the sweat on his fingertips. Good archers don’t get sweaty hands, and Donghyuck is usually a very good archer. Today, though, today is just a bad day. The sun is too bright, too hot, relentless against Donghyuck’s forehead. He draws a deep breath, but it sticks in his throat. There is no wind. Not a good day at all.

One of the new recruits for the Royal Archers, a short girl with a mousy face, sneaks him an inquisitive glance. Donghyuck recruited her himself because she can hit a flying fish from the foremast of her fishing boat - something she never stops reminding other trainees, apparently - but sometimes the challenge in her eyes can be quite annoying.

“What is it now?” he asks, with a sigh.

“Just wondering when you’ll shoot, Your Highness. There’s no wind and the light is optimal. What is holding you back?”

What an impudent brat, Donghyuck thinks. He should probably teach her a lesson, not because he’s a prince but because he’s the best archer of the islands and the continent, and she might be good too but she still can’t hit anything when there’s a little lick of wind. He sends her a tight smile, but doesn’t nock his arrow.

“Even if there’s no wind and the light is optimal, if the archer is restless the shoot won’t be clean. I’m sure you know that feeling as well. Now please, forgive me, my fiance has arrived.”

Yangyang is, indeed, standing on the balcony, looking down at Donghyuck with a carefully schooled bored expression. Donghyuck joins him slowly, kisses his hand to show off in front of the recruits. Yangyang smiles and hisses silently, taking his hand back as soon as Donghyuck lets it go.

“May I ask the reason for your presence?” Donghyuck asks.

“What? No thank you for saving you from that mouthy little archer?”

Donghyuck dismisses the guards with a gesture. He doesn’t need them to witness yet another scene. At this point, rather than wanting to cover it, he just feels bad for making them listen to the same old argument almost every day.

“I don’t really want to fight, Yangle. Not today.”

“Don’t call me that, you have kind of lost the right.”

“I don’t really want to fight, Lord Liu.”

Yangyang’s eyes thunder. “Well, I don’t really want to see you, but here we are.”

Donghyuck sighs and leans down until his elbows are leaning on the balustrade. Yangyang has made it very clear, countless times, how little he enjoys being Donghyuck’s promised husband. Donghyuck has made it even clearer. And yet, if he rejects Yangyang, his honor will be destroyed. No one would dare to marry the boy the Crown Prince repudiated. Donghyuck owes Yangyang at least this, this unhappy, bitter marriage that won’t make either of them happy.

“What have you come to say, then?”

“Your sister has fallen ill. The queen is worried about her mood.”

Donghyuck clicks his tongue. It wouldn’t be the first time, lately all Dongsoon does is lying in bed and complaining, no wonder the queen is fretting about it.

“I will visit her rooms later. Anything else you’ve been tasked upon telling me?”

“Fuck you.”

“After I present, darling. Until then, just fuck yourself on your own.”

It’s always more difficult when Jeno is not there with them. It’s always harsh, almost to the point of drawing blood with just their words. Donghyuck spent the first month taking, just taking and taking whatever Yangyang would throw at him, hoping that, at some point, he would run out of poison. Only when it became painfully clear that Yangyang had enough poison to last for their whole life together did Donghyuck strike back. It’s been months. Things have not improved. They probably never will.

But it’s fine, isn’t it? Donghyuck made this mess, Donghyuck will have to live with it. No more, no less.

 

❃

 

The air is still silent, in a way it seldom is on top of the Coraline. The cold gales blowing from the Vale are clashing with the warm whisks of the Burnt Lands, leaving the Islands trapped in a vacuum while the storm brews around them. Donghyuck misses the chattering of the winds, the playful breeze blowing in his ears as he nocks his arrows. To most archers, the wind is a distraction, but Donghyuck was born on the top of one of the windiest places in the world and he feels the lack of movement around him like a curse rather than a blessing, an omen of something dark to come.

“Your Highness, you should come back inside. The storm is going to start soon.”

Donghyuck nods, more out of habit than real conviction. The other recruits have already gone home, leaving the training courtyard empty. The shadows are long and delicate at this time of the day, and the lights are violent, bloody red and fiery orange, and the air is sticky and warm like a lover’s breath. Donghyuck takes a red and golden arrow from the quiver, he takes the position, stretches the bow.

The arrow hits the goal in the space of a moment, and Donghyuck watches its tail shake silently, the tip trapped in the wood. It hits the center but it’s slightly off, in the way Donghyuck’s shoots never are. He frowns, takes another arrow. He feels oddly restless, almost twitchy, the uneasiness in his chest echoing through his bones and stopping at his sweaty fingertips. He charges too much energy in the next shoot and almost misses the center altogether this time, the arrow stopping within the line, barely so. He manages to hit perfect bullseye with the third one.

He went to visit Dongsoon in the afternoon. She was lying on the bed like the heroine of an Imperial tragedy, her head reclined on the cushions, naked arms gracefully framing her chest. Donghyuck had snorted as he entered the room.

“Rumor is that you’re dying.”

“If you came to make fun of me while I’m on my death bed I will kick your teasing ass, Hyuckie.”

She had scooted towards the wall to make space for him on the bed and for a while they had lied in silence, next to each other.

“I’m not really sick, just a little…” She had sighed. “We got a message from the Vale. They’re worried because I haven’t presented yet and Imperial soldiers have been sighted at the border. They’re willing to proceed with the marriage this summer whether I present or not, apparently.”

“Wait, they can’t.”

“Yeah, they can’t. And yet they will, for the Empire scares them so much more than breaking tradition does. It scares our parents too.” A beat of silence. Dongsoon has always been able to understand Donghyuck’s questions without words. “I’m not scared.”

Of course Dongsoon is not scared. Donghyuck’s arrows hit the targets, one after another, as he replays his sister’s words in his mind, the way her hand had felt, so warm in his. Dongsoon and Donghyuck, Donghyuck and Dongsoon, the golden twins, the prince and princess of the smallest kingdom of the known lands.

The Southern Islands - or, how the Shar call them, the Shar Islands - were said to be the gift of the Goddess to the people of the sea, a safe harbor to shelter their ships from the storms of the Sea King. And shelter they were, naked rocks, all harsh cliffs and reefs, shelter they were and nothing more than that. They had no gold or precious stones, nothing that could be mined and sold. The land wasn’t big enough to be plowed and cultivated and the forests were thick and inhospitable. (No one would have ever guessed, no one could have ever imagined these little pebbles of land would become so powerful.) The pirates settled down, they built wooden houses and shaky docks and they tried to survive on fish and seaweed and prayers before they quickly realized trees were too precious to be used for houses and idols, and it was indeed useless to build houses if there was no food to fill new mouths, and that idols only work when they’re made of gold and diamonds rather than green wood. So they built more ships, more and more, all the ships they could build without completely undressing their forests, and they ventured over the Big Sea again as they had always done in the past.

The Shar were pirates, migrants without a land since the dawn of time, but the Goddess gave them a land to come back to, and that land became the foundation of their new kingdom. With their safe ports waiting for them, they grew stronger, braver, and faster. They found paths through the mistral where no ship of the continent had ever sailed, lands that no one had ever seen before them. They sailed among the banks of fog of the long night until they reached the Burnt Lands, opening the Great Trade Line between the continent and the lands beyond the sea. Then, and only then, the glory of the Southern Islands began, as they became the only keepers of the secret routes that lead to the Burnt Lands - and any other ship who dared to sail through the long night, they sank mercilessly.

The smallest kingdom of the known lands, a kingdom without resources that built itself on trade and blood, that fought for its right to be acknowledged, first, and then to keep its independence among the giants of the continent. Donghyuck is aware that the Islands don’t have the proud royal tradition of the Vale, nor the eternal history of the Na Empire. The Islands only have themselves. Countless times they’ve been attacked by other kingdoms who saw them as an easy target, and countless times they have defended themselves. The old kings have built their fortresses and castles on top of the cliffs, too high for ship cannons to reach, easy to defend, difficult to conquer. They have planted trees, and cut them, and planted some more, and when the wood wasn’t enough they had bought it from other lands to build the biggest fleet of the world. The Southern Islands are proud and ruthless, ready to defend themselves with golden claws, to lower their white sails and raise the black pirate flag anytime they deem it necessary, ready to buy their freedom with gold and riches. Pirates, maybe, but rich pirates, the wealthiest pirates in the world. And Donghyuck and Dongsoon are the golden siblings of this kingdom of glorified piracy, both raised proud and shameless at the same time, both raised ready to bow down if that’s what is needed to help their kingdom.

Of course Dongsoon is not scared, Donghyuck reasons. All her life she has waited to fulfil her role, to marry Minhyung of the Vale of the Giants in order to forge an alliance that will save the Islands.

“Do you love him?” Donghyuck had asked his sister.

“I love you,” she had said. “And mom, and dad, and Hyeongjun, and Dohyun, and Yeeun and Eunbi, and everyone here on the Islands. And I love the Islands, the way they stand in the middle of nowhere, tall against the storms, warm under the sun on a summer day. I love my home, Donghyuck, and that’s enough, don’t you think? That I’m leaving so that all of you can be happy. I love that I’m doing this, and believe me, brother, I am not scared, neither of the Vale nor of anything else.”

Donghyuck shoots all his arrows and when he’s done he gets some others until his quiver is heavier than his heart. Dongsoon might not be scared, but Donghyuck is. The wind is changing - he’s an archer, he would know. And Donghyuck loves the wind but he hates change, and he can feel it, deep in his bones, that this change, just like the wind, cannot be stopped.

Dongsoon will leave, his better half, his twin sister, and she will never come back.

_But this is our duty, isn’t it? The Shar prince and princess, the golden siblings. We live to serve the Islands, and if the Goddess allows us we live to make the Islands proud._

Donghyuck nocks the arrow, stretches the bow. He closes his eyes, just as a sob leaves his lips. He knows he’s missed, he feels the way the sigh twists his body, making him lose control of the shoot. When he opens his eyes, he can see it. He hasn’t hit the center for the first time in more than ten years.

The night has put off the fire in the long lights of the sunset, there’s barely any light left to shoot, and Donghyuck’s fingers tremble as they close around the next arrow. It’s wrong, everything’s wrong. The sweat pooling on his collarbones, the tears sliding down his cheeks. The clouds sing a song of silence, his harsh breaths the only sound in the clearing.

Donghyuck takes the position, trying to stretch his limbs because the skin is too tight around his flesh, like an armor two sizes smaller, he feels cramped in his own body. He licks his lips, finds them chapped. The target is barely visible on the other side of the courtyard. It’s the closest one, the first one Donghyuck ever hit in his life, the one he could hit from anywhere in the courtyard with his eyes closed. Fire licks at his chest, a hot flush that would leave him gasping, if he was breathing. But he’s not. He’s keeping it in, forcing his body in the right position - his arms bent, his legs slightly spread, the bowstring kissing his cheek like an old friend. His lashes cling onto each other, clustering wetly when he squeezes his eyes shut, releasing the bow just as a flash of searing hot pain flares up in his belly. When he opens his eyes, everything is black.

(His eyes are not really open. He is trapped, his body unresponsive, his consciousness lost in a maze of pain and humid heat. He never gets to see it, but he doesn't only miss the center. He misses the target completely.)

 

❃

 

The first scent Donghyuck ever smells is, of course, Dongsoon’s. It’s the smell of lemon and honey, the herbal tea the palace physician uses to brew for the princess every time she catches a cold. (Donghyuck doesn’t know yet, but he was the first thing she smelled too, honey and wildflowers and memories of warm summer days.)

Donghyuck tries opening his eyes, but it’s only when he blinks once, twice, and nothing happens that he realizes that it’s not that he can’t open his eyes, the room is just dark.

Dark, but not silent.

The storm that brewed and simmered around the Coraline for the past three days seem to have finally burst out of the pot and is now falling all around the fortress, rain cascading against the windows and the walls so violently it feels like it’s trying to break through them. A flash of white filters through the thick curtains, zigzagging against the wall and revealing the colorful tapestries of Donghyuck’s room before it disappears, quickly followed by a low rumble that makes the stone tremble.

Donghyuck tries to roll over, but pain flares low in his abdomen, sudden and sharp like a fit of cramps. He falls back, defeated. The small bell hanging from a cord he could use to call the guards or one of the handmaids lies against the wall, so close and yet barely out of his reach if he can’t even get up.

Donghyuck closes his eyes and tries to regain his breath, internally debating over breaking etiquette and shouting for help. Above the tickling of the rain, a few whispers emerge from behind the closed door. The head of the guards is talking to the king outside his room, it seems. Donghyuck recognizes the voice of the young Lord Moon, the son of the royal physician. Oh, and Yangyang is there too, although he doesn’t stay for long. He lets out one of those mean, cold laughs of his and leaves, slamming the door shut at his back. Donghyuck can _feel_ him leave, in a disorienting, confusing way.

It’s the smell, he suddenly realizes, Yangyang smells like cinnamon and apple, like winter cookies, the kind Donghyuck never really liked. His scent tangles with a whirlwind of other scents - Dongsoon’s honey and lemon, and then rosemary, peppermint, orange and cherry, wood and copper and leather, something spicy Donghyuck doesn’t recognize, and flowers, so many flowers, baked bread, freshly cut grass, old paper, sea salt, fire - so many scents, too many scents, and new colors, shining even in the darkness, and new sounds that echo inside Donghyuck’s ribcage, vibrating deep in his bones. Everything is too raw, too soon, too much. Pain spikes in Donghyuck’s head at the onslaught of sensation and he cries out, clutching his head with one shaky hand and at his painfully contracted stomach with the other.

Every sound is halted and a few moments later the door is slightly opened, enough that a small blade of light cuts the darkness. Donghyuck closes his eyes, trying to face away from the offending light. A cool wet cloth brushes against his forehead, soothing the pain thumping in his temples. He leans into the touch, lets the relief clear his mind.

“What did I do this time?” he murmurs.

The person above him chuckles, diffusing in the air a cool scent of lavender and rosemary. Donghyuck doesn’t need to open his eyes to know it’s Taeil. It’s his first time smelling his scent, and yet it’s so incredibly, naturally Taeil that Donghyuck doesn’t have any doubts.

“Oh, Your Highness. This time you really outdid yourself. You and the princess both.” Taeil sits down next to Donghyuck, careful not to jostle him too much. “Two true children of the Shar, defying destiny together. Can’t say I’m surprised, even though you have caused a whole lot of mayhem.”

Donghyuck blinks his eyes open.

“Where’s Dongsoon?” he asks.

“The princess is talking to the queen. They will be able to visit you as soon as my mother has assessed your condition.”

“Dongsoon also presented, didn’t she?” If she did, her absence certainly makes sense. She must be on the verge of her first heat. “So, what am I?”

Taeil hesitates.

“You’re… our prince, Hyuckie. You shouldn’t doubt that.”

 _Of course,_ Donghyuck wants to answer. _I know that, but what I am? Who am I, for the Goddess’ sake?_ He tries to pull himself up, looks for Taeil’s expression now that his eyes are used to the darkness in the room, but as soon as he’s sitting against the bedpost the whole world spins around him, his stomach clamping down painfully as if trying to force him to retch.

“Your Highness!”

Taeil quickly leans over, winding his arm around Donghyuck’s back to support him, but the moment they come in contact something rattles, deep inside Donghyuck. It feels like an ache, like an itch that needs to be scratched, like a scab to pick on but deep inside, where it can’t be possibly picked on. Donghyuck moans, low and sweet and completely out of his control.

He covers his mouth when he realizes what kind of sound he just let out, and looks up at Taeil, terrified. Taeil looks back, his eyes equally wide, the eyes of someone who’s touched something he shouldn’t have. He immediately lets Donghyuck go, and the absence of his touch is as jarring as his touch first was. Donghyuck whines in his throat and, without Taeil’s support, collapses against the cushions.

 _What is going on?_ he wants to ask, but he can’t. He can feel his body move, deep inside, he can feel himself clench and unclench slowly, like a poorly-oiled machine that hasn’t worked in forever. It was never supposed to work, he realizes. Because he’s not an Omega.

“I’m not an Omega,” he murmurs, looking at Taeil. “What is going on? Why am I…”

Slick. He feels slick, uncomfortably wet, and yet not wet enough. His body clenches again, in a painful, dry way, his insides hurling as if they’re trying to annul each other into nothingness.

“Your Highness,” Taeil says. He sounds so sympathetic, so sad. He takes a chalice from the night stand. “Your Highness, please. You have to drink this cordial. It will help you relax. Right now you’re too confused, your body is trying to present but something seems to not going as it should.”

Donghyuck hurls the chalice against the wall. That, alone, seems to take all his strength. He retches, again, but there’s not enough strength in him to even do that. His body spasms again, a hard, painful fit of inner friction that makes him feel like his whole core is being choked. The feeling of being trapped in a skin two sizes smaller is back, and Donghyuck claws at his forearms, his chest, his neck, trying to get rid of the tightness, to realize the energy thrumming in his veins. He extends a hand towards Taeil, trying to get him to come closer, to touch him, to remind him he’s still alive - right now he feels more falling star than human, the mere contact with air seems enough to make him burn in countless little sparks - but Taeil shakes his head.

“I’m sorry Your Highness. I can’t. I really cannot. Please forgive me.”

“You have done enough, Taeil, please get out.”

Donghyuck gasps as the sweet smell of honey and lemon fills the air. Taeil gasps too.

“Your Grace, you shouldn’t be here.”

Dongsoon looks at the both of them, blonde tresses ruffled and unkempt, chin shaking with something akin to despair.

“Get out Lord Moon, it’s an order from your Crown Princess.” Taeil bows down. “Don’t go and tell my parents or your mother or anyone that I’m here. I need to speak to my brother alone.”

Taeil hesitates at the door, sighs, looks down.

“I can give you five minutes.”

“I’ll make sure it’s enough.”

 

❃

 

“Soonie,” Donghyuck only says, and he’s aware he must look horrible, all sweaty and messy and desperate, with tear tracks on his cheeks and the shape of his nails imprinted on his palms from when he tightened his fists to the point of bleeding. But Dongsoon doesn’t look any better. She drops the Crown Princess facade as soon as the door closes behind Taeil. Her eyes are puffy and her pretty nose is blotched, and when she launches herself around Donghyuck, wrapping him in a hug that smells of lemon and honey, she starts crying first.

Her touch soothes Donghyuck’s ache like a splash of fresh water, and from that alone Donghyuck would know that she is, indeed, an Alpha, what a fucking irony. But where Taeil’s hands had burnt him, fueling the fire that runs under his veins like a fever, Dongsoon’s touch only feels familiar, comforting. Donghyuck hugs her back, draws her face in the crook of his neck and holds her shivering form until she stops sobbing.

“What a mess, Dongsoonie, is this how an Alpha is supposed to behave?” he croons, softly, and she almost starts crying again at that.

“It wasn’t supposed to go like this,” she murmurs. “Why did it become like this?”

Donghyuck shakes his head. How can he know?

“I don’t know how to do this, I’m not… I’m not you, Hyuck. I was supposed to marry my stupid prince and give him a bunch of stupid babies and keep the alliance alive, that was my duty, that was my purpose. Not this, never this. What if Dohyun and Hyeongjun are Betas, Hyuck? What if I’m the only Alpha and I need to claim the throne? I can’t fight, I can’t rule, you were the smart one.”

“That’s highly debatable, Princess,” Donghyuck murmurs, with a weak smile.

“No, you always were, and I was the pretty girl who only needed to worry about flowers and songs and pretty clothes. I can’t lead a kingdom, Donghyuck, I cannot.”

“You can’t lie to me, Soonie. When have you ever worried about flowers and songs and pretty clothes? You always do things the way you want to do them. Should’ve known you were an Alpha since the beginning.”

She does cry again after that, and she holds Donghyuck tighter, squeezing him as if she would fall if she were to let him go.

“The alliance will fall because of me, because I couldn’t present as an Omega, or even as a Beta. I ruined everything.”

“No, no, Soonie, how could you have ruined anything? You just presented… this… this is not your fault.”

If it’s someone’s fault, it’s probably Donghyuck’s. How many times did he hope for Minhyung to present as an Omega? For something to happen and make the engagement invalid? Is this the sick revenge of destiny? Taeil said he defied his destiny, but Donghyuck just feels like destiny defied him.

“It’ll be okay, Soonie. Mom and dad will find a solution, I’m sure of it.”

“I’m scared.”

“I’m scared too. It wasn’t supposed to go like this.”

Only then she seems to realize Donghyuck is probably even more lost than her right now.

“I’m sorry,” she babbles, “you also presented and I’m here making it all about me and…”

Her eyes widen and fill with tears again, but Donghyuck catches her face between his hands, stopping her mid-sob.

“No, you have to listen to me. You can do it, Dongsoon, and there’s no one who can do this better than you. Don’t you know it? You’re my better half.”

She nods at every word, lets Donghyuck lead her, and smiles through her tears when she hears the last words. They always used to pester their parents when they were kids, asking them who was the better half. Of course, their parents refused to give them an answer. After fighting, they would end up here, in Donghyuck’s bed, cuddling together, refusing to let go even as they kept arguing over who could be the better half. Donghyuck never told her he thought it was her, she never told Donghyuck she thought it was him.

Dongsoon’s hands cover Donghyuck’s, pulls them down so they can intertwine their fingers together. She lays her forehead on his. It’s the last time, Donghyuck realizes. He doesn’t know why, he just knows it’s the last time they get to be children together, the golden children of the Shar Islands.

“I’m not, Hyuck,” she murmurs, her eyes closed. “Maybe once I was, but not anymore. You’re too much to be just half of me.”

“Then let’s be whole people from now on, even if we aren’t the people we thought we would be. At least the Goddess has been kind and merciful. I might have presented as an Omega, but she made you an Alpha because she knew I would’ve been too scared to leave the kingdom to anyone else. After all, I only trust you.”

 

❃

 

Lady Moon is short and soft, like her son, but Donghyuck has seen her popping dislocated shoulders back into place in men thrice her size. Right now, her gentle demeanor is gone. The look she sends Dongsoon is outright murderous.

“You will go back to your room, Your Highness. Immediately. I need to talk to the prince.”

“I can help him! He feels better when I’m with him.”

“He only feels better now, but once his heat starts what will you be able to do? You’re not children anymore, holding his hand and kissing his cheek won’t give him the physical relief he needs. There is no comfort someone like you can give him, Your Highness, and every moment you make me waste is a moment I could use to prepare your brother to the most traumatic experience in his life. Please leave.”

Dongsoon shakes, ready to protest, but Donghyuck squeezes her hand. “You should go. I’ll survive. I’m strong enough, I promise. Didn’t you say it? I’m too much to be your half, even if I’d be the better one.”

Dongsoon nods and leaves, planting a last kiss on her brother’s forehead. The lack of her touch hurts, and he has to stop himself from reaching out again.

“Please be strong, it will go away, Hyuckie. Don’t lose yourself in it.”

The physician clears her throat and locks the door when Dongsoon leaves. She comes closer, her grim expression almost like a death sentence.

“I won’t beat around the bush, Your Highness. At this point, you must be already aware of the outcome of your presentation.” Donghyuck bites his bottom lip and looks down. When he doesn’t say anything she continues. “You’re an Omega, whether you like it or not, which means you will go into heat soon, any moment now.”

“I don’t want to.”

It’s hurting again, just like before Dongsoon arrived. Maybe worse, but pain in pain and he doesn’t know how to measure it. It felt unbearable before, it feels unbearable now.

Lady Moon sighs and Donghyuck realizes she’s only holding back out of consideration for him, otherwise she would’ve just told him to stop whining like a child. He can’t really help it. Everything hurts and he was never supposed to be an Omega.

“I cannot stop it, and, no matter how much you want it, nor can you. Your sister was prepared to spend her first heat alone but you were not. There’s no time to get you ready in any way, Your Highness, there’s no medicine that can ease this process, no matter how painful it is, and I cannot possibly let any Alpha in here with you, even if it would definitely help. You’re still the prince of this country, and you’re an Omega. Your first time is more precious than you think, now more than ever.”

Donghyuck swallows a sob. It’s wet and it almost gets stuck inside his throat. It hurts to even breathe, but he promised Dongsoon, didn’t he? That he would be strong, that he would be whole. And yet, all the courage he gave her, she took it back with her when she left, leaving Donghyuck weak and vulnerable.

“So what? What do I do?”

What do they expect him to do? How do they expect him to survive, not until tomorrow but through the next hour, when his body is hot and heavy and stubborn, refusing to relax, heaving and clenching, choking the air out of his lungs, squeezing slick out of his gut, the pain so raw it feels like they’re butchering him alive.

There’s no malice in Lady Moon’s voice, and yet it doesn’t shake as it signs Donghyuck’s death sentence.

“You endure it, Your Highness, like any other Omega before you. You endure it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will probably be shorter, but I promise it's the last interlude before the beginning of the second arc.  
> Thank you for reading <3


	26. xxvi. (interlude) caged hearts in dream-made hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hellow~  
> This is the last of the chapters written from Donghyuck's point of view for now. I tried my best to give you a glimpse of Donghyuck since he seems to escape Mark's grasp, and I hope you can now understand him better.  
> Thank you so much for supporting this fic along the way, and also thank you for supporting me. For everyone who asked, I'm eating well and enjoying my holidays, so don't worry <3<3  
> This said, please enjoy the chapter.
> 
> \- [chapter title inspiration](https://avolitorial.tumblr.com/post/161109604282/from-translation-by-anne-carson-expansions-on)  
> \- Songs for this chapter are Castle by Halsey, Youth by Daughter and Kill Them All by Ramin Djawadi ([playlist](https://twitter.com/aprilclaws/status/1156324062047670272))  
> \- Free promo for this [Donghyuck edit](https://twitter.com/taebobae/status/1215080658885926913) by @taebobae (i've never done promo for moodboard/concepts but there are so many lovely tweets out there and i usually promote them on twitter if you're interested)

The sound of the golden horn on top of the Coraline is what wakes Donghyuck up after what could have been four hours as well as four weeks of delirious heat. The grave, looming sound pulls Donghyuck back from a dream of big hands bruising his hips and tender lips around his dick. He falls through it and lands on reality again, confused, sweaty and completely spent.

The horn of the Red Keep is only used on three occasions: the crowning of a new king, the beginning of a war, and the call of the Royal Assembly, the gathering of all the lords of the Shar Islands. Donghyuck sits up, watches the small line of blue light entering from the window, where the curtains are a little wrinkled. He must have pulled on them, he realizes, during the frenzy of the fever, when his body was burning and he felt like he was drowning in boiling water, desperate to find a lifeline. From outside he can hear the calls of the seagulls, the whistles of the wind, and the low rumble of the horn.

So what is it? Not a new king, for sure. So either war or the call of the Assembly. Donghyuck gets up, trying his shaky legs on the carpeted floor. They threaten to buckle and send him tumbling down, but he wills them to hold him up and they do. He’s naked, drenched in sweat, and the slick he has produced for days has dried up on the back of his legs making him grimace in disgust at the icky feeling. The light hurts his eyes when he pulls the curtains completely open, revealing a sky so pale it looks like it’s made of ice instead of clouds, the color of early, lonely dawns. It’s that time of the morning when the top of the sea is silvery, refusing to reflect any hue but the most delicate ones. It’s on this pale, melancholic sea that over one hundred ships have dropped anchor, each with its flag, its color, its family crest. From the Dukes who control the Old Glories, the main six islands of the archipelago - seven counting the main island, Miria, where the royal family lives and rules on the archipelago from the strong walls of their red fortress, the Coraline - to the smallest, nameless licks of sand and rock where only a couple of families can live with their boats, every island-holder of the archipelago has the right to speak in the Assembly. And they all came.

Donghyuck wishes he could draw a breath of relief, for it’s the Assembly and not war. However, the Assembly is only called when there is danger of war.

He opens the windows and lets the fresh air invade the room, the saltiness of the sea sweeping away the staleness of sleep, sweat and slick. He heads towards the bathroom, washes his body quickly and thoroughly. When he smells like a prince and not like a frustrated Omega in heat, he wears his most formal clothes, the black and golden Navy uniform that only the Crown Prince of the Shar Islands can wear as admiral of the Royal Navy. Even if Donghyuck is an Omega, until the title is officially passed to his sister he still is the Crown Prince, and as a Crown Prince he will attend the Assembly. For the last time.

 

❃

 

“What about an alliance with the Empire then? The Vale won’t back out of the deal empty-handed, but if we give them our ships we’ll find them under the Coraline before the end of summer, waging war.”

“If they survive the war, you mean, which they won’t. Our ships won’t help them against the Empire.”

“More of a reason to seek an alliance with the Empire then! If they’re going to win this war anyway it’s better to have them on our side then on the opposite.”

“Ridiculous. And after the Empire has subjugated the Vale, what will stop them from doing the same with us? An alliance? A marriage? The deal with the Vale worked because we were both gaining something and we were both strong enough to balance each other out in case one of the parts decided to attack, but the Empire gains nothing from an alliance with us when they can just crush us with their superior manpower.”

“Then what is your suggestion, Lady Min? The Vale won’t accept the daughter of a lord, not when they were promised the daughter of a king. And if you haven’t noticed we’re short of king’s daughters here.”

“Then what is _your_ suggestion, Lord Park? Or are you telling me…”

“People of the Shar Assembly, behave!”

The shouting tones down to mere whispers, all eyes turning to the king sitting on his throne at one end of the room. Next to him the queen, and at her left Princess Dongsoon, looking pale enough to pass for a ghost. On the king’s right, the seat usually reserved for the Crown Prince is painfully empty.

Donghyuck leans on the marble balustrade of the hidden balcony and watches the hall below. So this is what the Assembly is about. They need to tell the Vale that there will be no marriage, no alliance. The only thing keeping the frail peace of the continent was the promise of the marriage between Mark of the Vale and Dongsoon of the Islands. Without that promise, without that marriage, the only thing that there will be is war. But Lady Min is right, an alliance with the Empire won’t spare the islands from it.

_What a cruel irony, for our destiny to be chained with the destiny of the Vale. Countless times they have tried to invade us, countless times we have defeated them. And yet, if they fall, we fall with them._

Downstairs, the fighting has resumed, louder and louder. Oh, Donghyuck knows very well how it’ll go. He’s been in enough Inner Council meetings with the Dukes of the Old Glories to be able to predict the outcome of this one as well. Lady Min and Lord Park will bicker among themselves, probably bringing up their old feud, Lord Kim will use his status as duke of the second biggest island of the archipelago to pretend to bring peace and actually fuel the fire and the two Lord Lee from the sister islands of Marina will threaten to leave the room until peace has been restored. The young lords Jang - Hyunseung and Dongwoo, Yeeun’s brothers from different mothers, who are at their first meeting ever in place of their sick father - will not say anything, too bewildered by the loud argument.

 _Welcome to court,_ Donghyuck thinks with a sardonic smile. _A bunch of whiny dogs fighting for an already gnawed bone. How long until someone gets challenged to a duel of honor?_

“What about sending the Princess anyway? They can have a marriage of convenience to keep the alliance valid and divorce later when the threat is no more.”

“Are you that obtuse? The alliance will not be valid without an heir!”

“And I won’t allow my daughter to be dishonored like that,” the king reminds everyone with a piercing glare.

“With all due respect, Your Majesty, the situation is dire enough without thinking about honor. Our entire country is in danger!”

“How dare you! I challenge you to a first blood duel to defend the honor of Princess Dongsoon!”

“Enough!”

This time the whole assembly falls silently. The king gets up, glaring at everyone.

“I have called the Assembly to find a solution, not to have all of you fight among yourselves like savages! We cannot block the ports for longer than one day. Tomorrow, our freighters will leave the docks and bring the news to the two continents, so we only have only until today to decide what to tell the world.”

“What about telling them the truth?” Donghyuck looks towards one of the last seats of the assembly where Lord Liu of Starpath, the superintendent of the trade with the Burnt Lands - not one of the Dukes, but still one of the most powerful men of the Islands - traditionally sits. The one who just talked was not him but his youngest son, Yangyang. Donghyuck fights back the urge to wince. “The Princess presented as an Alpha. Let’s call for a meeting to see what their conditions are so we can decide what to do with them. Let’s bargain and negotiate. That’s what we’re good at.”

Bargain? If Donghyuck knows their methods - and, after all these years, he does - The Vale will ask them for the route to the Burnt Lands out of spite. But that would drag the negotiations out for weeks, because if there’s something the Islands will never give up it’s the monopoly on those routes. When denied, the Vale will ask for gold and ships, more gold and ships the Islands can give up. Then, the bargaining will begin. More meetings, more negotiations, more subtle threats. In the meanwhile, the war will start. And once a war machine is started, once men and animals are moved, once weapons are forged and plans are devised, there will be no way to stop it.

Donghyuck can read all of this on his father’s defeated face. He can read it in the anxiety slithering through the room, in the whispers between the lords and their advisors. Today, the destiny of the Shar Islands could be decided, and Donghyuck of Miria, on his last day as the Crown Prince of the Shar Islands, can do very little to change it. He won’t be able to lead his country to war, he might not even be able to fight this war, a war that will start because his sister didn’t present as an Omega, and Donghyuck won’t be able to do anything because he presented as an Omega. Ah, the irony.

Down in the throne room, people are arguing, screaming. Donghyuck gives one last look at them, his father and the shadows under his eyes, and to the first silver threads in his golden hair. His mother’s stern expression, the urge to scold all the lords like they’re her own children barely reared in as she tortures the golden embroidery on her corset with her nervous fingers. Dongsoon and the way she faces forward, eyes like colorful glass, doll’s eyes, too pretty to be real, her expression set in stone as she pretends not to hear the people in front of her - her subjects, people who have always respected her, who have treated her like family - proposing to sell her to the Empire instead, or silently blaming her for the demise of the country. One last glance. Donghyuck turns his back to the scene and walks down the stairs.

No one feels him enter. The discussion is too heated, there are too many scents in the room to single him out. No one sees notices him but Yangyang. It’s the first time they see each other since that day on the training courtyard. His eyes narrow as he zooms in on Donghyuck, as he smells the last tendrils of heat on him. He looks too confused to feel hostile for once. Donghyuck ignores him, but unfortunately for him Dongsoon doesn’t. She sees Yangyang’s bewildered expression first, and following the line of his gaze she finds Donghyuck. Their eyes meet.

 _What are you doing?_ she seems to ask.

Donghyuck shrugs and her eyes widen in terror, but he breaks eye contact. He clutches the sun brooch on his chest, the crest of the royal family, as he walks up to the platform where the throne is. It’s such a sudden appearance that the closest guard almost tries to stop him, aborting the movement when he recognizes the Crown Prince. By then, everyone in the room is looking at Donghyuck as he sits down at his father’s right, the empty seat reserved for the heir.

“Donghyuck, what are you doing here?” the queen asks, her face distressed, her voice low so that it’s not caught by everyone else. (It’s useless, the room has fallen into a religious silence and everyone can guess what she’s saying anyway.) “You should be in bed, you’re still on your…”

“I will do it,” he says, and he’s glad he’s not looking at Dongsoon, he can already see her getting angry, her furrowed brows, her bottom lip trembling in indignation, the slight air of incredulity mixed with outrage, _really, Donghyuck? What are you thinking, for the Goddess’ sake?_ Donghyuck is glad he’s not looking at anyone, really. He doesn’t need their sorrow, he doesn’t want their pity. It’s his last day as a Crown Prince, let it be the day the Crown Prince saved the country.

Honestly, losing a war might almost be a better option than this. But, in the end, has there ever been anything worse than losing a war?

“I will do it,” he repeats, voice steady and still sweet with the heat thrumming in his veins. “I will marry Prince Mark of the Vale of the Giants.”

 

❃

 

Donghyuck is not ready for the overwhelming opposition to his idea. Not only his father, but all the major lords vote against it, and then the minor lords too, a chorus of protests that shuts him down completely for a moment. Yangyang leaves before Donghyuck can see the contempt on his face, but Donghyuck still has to stay there through the six hours of assembly, watching everyone grow more and more disgruntled at the depressing realization that this, giving up their golden prince to the Vale, is still the best option they have if they want to avoid a war.

“It is a matter of honor, Your Highness. You have represented the Islands for your whole life. If we allow you to go there and be the consort of that half-witted prince…”

“And why is it that it was fine for me to marry Mark of the Vale of the Giants and it is not fine for my brother?”

Donghyuck turns towards Dongsoon, surprised. Oh, she’s furious with him, he can feel it in his bones, but she’s his sister and she’s on his side. She’s always been on his side.

“Forgive me, Princess, but you’re not the current captain of our army. You were not the admiral of our fleet in the last two naval battles and you did not represent us in the last Council of the Nations, your brother did. If we send our leader in the bed of the enemy, how will that make us look?”

“I’m not your leader,” Donghyuck says, for the umpteenth time. “The law is clear. An Omega cannot lead the country.”

“Screw the law then, we made it and we can change it.” Surprisingly, it’s Lady Min who talks. “You once saved my son’s life, when he served under your command. Omega or not, if there is a war, I’d rather have one of the most prepared men of the country on the dock of our flagship than in the bed of a foreigner.”

The smile Donghyuck sends her is sweet, despite the bitterness he feels.

“But if I go there, there won’t be any war at all. It’s a sacrifice I’m ready to make.”

“Are you, though?” asks Lord Liu from his seat at the end of the room, and his reprimand stings the most. “A marriage is not a game, Your Highness. A political marriage even less.”

Donghyuck looks up to the man he thought he would call a father, the man whose son’s heart he broke so badly he does not know if either of them will ever recover. But this is bigger than Yangyang’s heart, bigger than Lord Liu’s bitterness.

“I have been raised to be a king, Lord Liu, and no one more than me understands the implications of a political marriage. Yet, I will never be king. Let me at least serve my country like this.”

 

❃

 

“You can’t do it!”

Donghyuck pushes Dongsoon’s hands away as soon as they’re alone in their room annoyed by the frustrated pheromones she’s emitting.

“And why not, dear sister? You think you’re the only one who can spread her legs for that prick?”

The slap is not unexpected, but it stings more when she hisses at him.

“You are not allowed to talk to me like that, Donghyuck, not today, not ever again.”

Donghyuck takes a step back to clear his head from her overwhelming authority. He claps twice.

“Congratulations, Dongsoon of the Shar Islands. You spoke like a true Alpha.”

“And you spoke like a true asshole.”

“True, but I’ve just announced to a room full of people who once respected me that I’ll become a breeding mare for a boy I’ve hated for most of my life. I think I deserve some slack.”

He flops down on the sofa, feeling his head spin. The last remnants of heat are still shivering under his skin, making his stomach clench.

“This is _exactly_ why you shouldn’t do this! You and Mark… He’ll destroy you, Hyuck. He’s such a nice guy, but he can’t love, he can’t love at all, and you’ve loved him for years. You deserve so much better than that.”

Donghyuck flinches at that, doesn’t even bother to deny it. If it doesn’t fool Jeno it certainly won’t feel Dongsoon.

“I got over it,” he just murmurs, closing his eyes.

“Did you? Does it even matter? Can you really spread your legs for him, Donghyuck? Because that’s what we’re talking about. You’re not just going there to be a royal hostage, sipping wine and spouting sarcastic comments at your husband’s rapier form, you will have to lie down and take that dick deep in your guts, possibly every day of your life until you’re knocked up for good.”

Donghyuck feels his blood sing, rushing not to his face as much as between his legs. He has a confused, fuzzy recollection of thrusting his fingers up his ass as far as they could go last night, whining deep in his throat because it wasn’t enough. The mere idea of them being replaced by Minhyung’s fingers, Minhyung’s cock - or is it Mark now? - sends his whole body on fire in the most shameful, dirty way. The worst thing is the relief he feels when Dongsoon mistakes his reaction for disgust and not… whatever it is.

Dongsoon sighs and walks closer, lays her head against Donghyuck’s shoulder, rubs his stomach until the tension bleeds out of his muscles, leaving him jelly-limbed and purring in her blond hair.

“He’ll destroy your pride, Hyuck,” she whispers, curling her fingers in his hair. “You’re made to conquer, not to be conquered.”

Donghyuck laughs at that, a breathless, choked laugh.

“Mark of the Vale of the Giants is the one who should be careful. I will either conquer him or I’ll be the one to destroy him.”

 

❃

 

The wind pushes Donghyuck’s hood back, freeing his blond curls and messing them up fondly. It feels anguished, like it’s already missing playing with them. Donghyuck climbs on the humis stone and finally sits on the merlon of outer walls of the fortress, his naked legs dangling over the edge. He watches the reef precipitate into the fog below, disappearing into a cloud of darkness. Down there, anchored on the bay, one little light is shining. It’s the ship that will bring him to the Vale when day comes.

Her name is Morning Star and she belongs to Lord Liu, but her captain is Yangyang’s favorite cousin, Ten. It’s almost ironic that Ten was on the ship that took Donghyuck to the Vale for the first time, back when he was just a young deckhand. Now, fourteen years later, he’s the captain of the ship that will bring Donghyuck to the Vale for the last time. It almost feels like something is coming full circle.

“Getting second thoughts?”

It takes a moment for Donghyuck to recognize the subtle smell of cinnamon, barely a hint lost in the wind. He doesn’t say anything as Yangyang hoists himself up and sits next to him on the other side of the edge. It’s the first time they meet properly after the Assembly, two months ago. Even when their engagement was officially broken it was just their parents meeting to sign some papers. Yangyang had stayed in Starpath, refusing to receive Donghyuck’s letters, even refusing to meet Jeno.

Donghyuck finally turns around to look at him.

“Did you come to bid me goodbye? Didn’t take you for the sentimental type.”

“And what would you know about sentimentalism, Donghyuck? Last I knew, you lied to me for years just because you were too much of a coward to tell me you didn’t like me back.”

Oh, so this is how it’s going to be, Donghyuck realizes. They had years to have this conversation and of course Yangyang had to wait until the last possible moment, right when Donghyuck is at his weakest.

“It’s not that I didn’t like you. It’s just that I liked someone else more. Is that what you wanted to hear? Did it make you feel better?”

Yangyang scoffs.

“Oh, this must feel like a dream to you. In a day you manage to get rid of me, of all your responsibilities, and even of your prince’s betrothed. Now you’re free to go and chase your crush, get married to him and carry all his children without a single regret, you even get to be called a hero for that. Things worked out pretty well for you, I’d dare to say.”

Donghyuck closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to fight, not with Yangyang, not tonight.

“Do you think your prince will like you just because now you smell like candies and flowers? Is that why you’re leaving? You won’t have a happy ending, Donghyuck. I don’t think you deserve one.”

Oh, but Donghyuck knows. There’s no happy ending for him. Minhyung hates him and he… he hates Minhyung too. Minhyung and his limpid eyes who only turn murky, shady, like a limpid lake under the fury of a storm, whenever he meets Donghyuck. Minhyung and that silly laugh of his that Donghyuck never managed to elicit, no matter how funny and witty he was, because Minhyung didn’t like him - and how many times did Donghyuck linger behind a corner, waiting for Dongsoon to say something that would make Minhyung laugh like that just so he could get those crumbs, how pathetic, how foolish. Minhyung and the way he was soft, aloof, carefree, and the way Donghyuck had to hit him, to bite him, to pick at him until he bled, to make him become hard and angry and ready to bite back. Minhyung, who was the wrong person to fall in love with, and Donghyuck hates him for that more than for anything else, even if it was his fault. Minhyung who became an Alpha, and Donghyuck who became an Omega, these two people who now have to marry each other, Donghyuck hates them both.

“You think I like doing this?” he asks. His voice doesn’t shake. How could it shake. Hurting Yangyang has long lost its novelty. It’s a wound so old that at this point it’s just a scar, tiny and inconsequential if compared with the raw, bleeding pain for everything Donghyuck has lost in the last months. “Leaving my home, leaving my family? Leaving my heritage? You’re a fool if you think a teenage crush was worth everything I had here.”

“You were the one who volunteered.”

Donghyuck snorts.

“I have already lost enough. If I don’t leave and there’s a war, I would lose even more. But I’m not happy. I should have stayed and helped Dongsoon, I should’ve trained the new recruits and married a Shar Lord instead of a foreigner. I should’ve just presented as an Alpha.”

“You shouldn’t have fallen in love with someone else, maybe.”

“Well, it happened. Some of us don’t have the luxury to choose their destiny. Everything, all of this, it just happened and I didn’t have any control over it. Is that what you want? To gloat? Then gloat, Yangle. Let this be the last memory I have of one of my best friends.”

The heavy steps of the night patrol interrupt them. They wait in silence until the guards have all passed. No one thinks of looking up. No one expects to find a young lord and a young prince perched like sea sparrows on the merlons of the Coraline, bidding their last goodbyes.

“I haven’t seen you as a friend in such a long time, Donghyuck,” Yangyang says, to the silent night.

“Oh, and you won’t see me, as a friend or as anything else, for an even longer time. You know what they say about the consorts of the kings of the Vale. They aren’t allowed to leave Dawyd, ever. I don’t think we will see each other again.”

“Maybe it’s for the best. We’re not really good for each other.”

Donghyuck looks down. The night is black and foggy. The only star shining in the darkness is the little light on the deck of the Morning Star. They’re too high up to hear the sloshing of the waves against the reef, but Donghyuck can imagine it. He spent so many afternoons with Yangyang on that old tub they insisted to call a boat, trying to sail towards the Burnt Lands or simply lying down on the wood that smelled like salt and letting the waves lull them to sleep. They were good for each other. They just weren’t good enough.

“I hope he breaks your heart like you broke mine,” Yangyang says, and it’s mean, it’s childish and petty and so unnecessary, but it feels like an ending, a closure to the months of poison between them.

Donghyuck laughs.

“He already has, what else can he do? Break my heart again?”

“He will clip your wings, Donghyuck. And I might not know the secrets of your heart, but I know you. You’re not made for that life, living in a cage like someone’s pretty songbird. That’s not you. That will never be you.”

“No, that’s not _you_ , Yangyang. But, me? I’m a prince. I’ve always been a pretty songbird in a cage.”

Their eyes meet and, for the first time in six months, Yangyang doesn’t look angry at him. He just looks angry, at everything, and incredibly sad.

“You won’t last there.”

Donghyuck swings his legs down, like he always did when he was a kid. He turns to Yangyang, gives him a last sour smile.

“Wanna bet?” he asks, and he tries not to see the way his friend has to swallow back his tears.

“I’m giving you six months before you run back here with your tail between your legs.”

“Only if you make sure you forget me in those six months, Yangyang Liu of Starpath.”

“Then we have a deal, Prince Donghyuck of Miria.”

Over the line of the horizon, the sun is rising. It’s almost time.

“Have a good journey, Your Highness. See you in six months.”

 

❃

 

** Six months later **

The woods are white, cold and silent. The skies, too, are white. Snow has carpeted the underbrush, turning bushes and roots into grotesque ice sculptures, frozen hands creeping from the ground, with claws made of cold wood. It’s not snowing now, but the calm won’t last for long. A storm is coming from the Clairs, one hours, maybe two. The hunters need to hurry.

Mark of the Vale of the Giant dismounts from his horse and pulls down the scarf wrapped around his face. The air is so crispy with unshed snow it tickles his nose. The horse rumbles, suddenly nervous, and Mark pats his neck to calm him down.

“Wait for me here,” he murmurs. He silently gestures the other hunters to stop and be quiet. On the candid ground, he can see the tracks of a group of deer, young males, their footprints so fresh they must have left only a few moments ago.

They’ve been following them for almost an hour, always careful, always silent, but they’re white deer of the forests at the feet of the Clairs, smart beasts, extremely sensitive to the presence of humans. An entire group of hunters riding heavy snow horses is bound to make too much noise for them, so this time Mark decides he’ll go on his own.

He follows the tracks by foot, careful not to make any sound, until he reaches a wide clearing around what in spring would have been a small pond. There’s four of them. Two young males, probably at their first season without their mother. An adult male, maybe six or seven years, at the peak of his life. The last one is old, its antlers like the branches of a tall oak. This might be one of his last winters. Even if he can escape the wolves, the lack of food will finish him. It’s towards him that Mark points his bow.

 _Breathe,_ he thinks. Donghyuck would breathe, even if it’s an easy shoot. Donghyuck would breathe and hit the deer with his eyes closed. But it’s not Donghyuck, it’s Mark in the middle of the woods at the edges of the kingdom, and if he misses this might be the last chance he gets before the snow starts falling again, forcing him to go back to the village empty-handed. And with the winter slowly closing in on them, another day of fruitless hunt could mean that some of the people of the village will not see the end of winter.

It won’t happen. It can’t happen. Not under Mark’s watch.

He breathes, stretches the bow until the silvery feathers of the arrow are brushing against his cheekbone.

A snowflake falls in front of him, slowly, landing on the silver tip of the arrow. It shakes slightly in front of Mark's half-closed eye.

A raven caws, up from the naked branches of a sleeping tree.

The whistle of an arrow cuts the air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo a candy to anyone who can guess what is going on here.  
> For clarity, the /six months later/ part is written in Mark's pov again and it's set in December, so at least one month after the events in Chapter 22.  
> See you next week (hopefully) with the new update <3


	27. xxvii. & you stand in the forest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought for a long time what to do write in these author notes. I know some of you supported one choice, I know some of you supported the other, and I know I couldn't make everyone happy. I could spend a lot of words explaining why I decided to take this direction instead of the other, because I took my time weigh pros and cons of both alternatives. However, fics need to be read, not explained or justified. If you're curious about my motivations you can ask and I'll answer, but I don't want to feel like I should always argue and defend the plot. I'll just try to write the way I always have. Thank you again for supporting me, for telling me to take my time between updates, for being understanding despite the long time you have to wait for a new chapter. You deserve all the love.  
> (I'll take my time to finish replying old comments after my sister will leave. I want to enjoy the time I have left with her ;;)
> 
> \- [chapter title inspiration](https://avolitorial.tumblr.com/post/164988364702/bracketed-from-translation-by-anne-carson)  
> \- Songs for this chapter are Winterspell by Two Steps From Hell and All the King's Horses by Karmina ([playlist](https://twitter.com/aprilclaws/status/1156324062047670272))  
> 

The fortress of Robyn is an irrelevant bunch of stones at the edge of the Vale, right at the foot of the mountains, with an irrelevant history to match. It was built before Mark’s father ascended to the throne, during the war that lost the Vale of the Giants the cities of Condor and Peregrine. The king - the grandfather Mark never knew - was aware that if they had lost the Clairs nothing would have stopped the invaders from marching towards Dawyd. So he ordered the construction of a fortress to guard the Gate, like a heavy sword hanging over the narrow bottleneck pass that allowed access to the surrounding valley, the feud of Saira.

And that’s how Robyn was built, in great haste, a fortress of ruddy stone, closer to clay than coral - unlike another famous red fortress on the other side of the sea - cobbled together in less than a year under the whims of an inflexible king. It had no style, no logic, and no purpose other than sheltering soldiers and guarding the Gate. It had no history and no lord, for it was built on the land of the lord of Saira, and after the war the lord of Saira thought it was just too bothersome to get it back, this big castle full of drafts, with wide, tall rooms that never got warm and leaks in the roof built too fast by soldiers instead of carpenters.

In Robyn, the Crown Prince met the Lady of Gyr for the first time before their marriage in Dawyd, a meeting that left both of them quite unsatisfied. When he became king he gave the castle to her as a wedding gift, one inside which she would have gladly lived - far enough from him, close enough to her beloved mountains. But, alas, the queen wasn’t allowed to leave the capital, and so the gift was passed out, not to her first son, who inherited a castle on the shores of the Oriental Sea, but to her second son, Crown Prince of the Vale of the Giants and Lord of Robyn, master of its irrelevant red stones, its irrelevant history, its bunch of gaunt wooden houses and its population of loggers and seasonal farmers who only survive the winter by poaching in the woods around the fortress. A village of outlaws and starved kids. What a legacy, Mark thinks with a barely suppressed grimace.

“You still haven’t told us why you came here, Your Highness.”

The blacksmith, and also the unofficial leader of the villagers of Robyn, looks at Mark expectantly as they trot on the soft layer of snow coating the hill. It’s early afternoon, but the sun is already low. Mark shrugs.

“The fortress is falling apart. Not that it was much better before as far as I heard, but if we don’t do something about it there will be nothing left for my second son or daughter to inherit, assuming the Goddess decides to bless me with one.”

It’s a lie, and a weak one too. The man stares at him, slowly chewing on the spicy yellow leaves the people of the mountains eat to keep themselves warm in winter and protected from both evil spirits and common colds.

“Aye, I understand. Still, it’s strange. We haven’t received the honor of a visit in decades and now suddenly we got an entire royal party in our yard.”

“You mean my yard?”

The man laughs, loud enough to shake the woods around them and make snow fall from the closest branches. The horse pants under his weight and Mark winces, afraid of having offended him. But the blacksmith just leads his horse closer and pats the prince’s back.

“The palace must be quite the miserable place if you’d rather call these ruins your yard instead. So the rumors are true, the Crown Prince and our wise king are fighting.”

Mark frowns.

“Is that what people say about us?” he asks.

“Ah, people are not stupid, young prince. Or would you tell me that your father suddenly decided to loosen his leash on you out of goodwill? That man doesn’t have a single good bone in his body. All royal bones, you see, and yet none of them is good.”

“You're talking about your king,” Mark says, but it doesn't come off as a threat as much as a petty remark. The blacksmith spits his leaves on the ground.

“Yes, I am. Not all kings are good, Your Highness, but they still sit on their throne and there’s little us folks can do other than talking about them. You, on the other hand, you seem like a good folk, but you don’t strike me as someone with enough spine to go against your old man unless it’s absolutely necessary. Which brings us back to our original question, what are you doing here?”

Mark swallows the insult with another shrug. The blacksmith talks too much, but what he says is sharp, reasonable and aggravatingly correct. Mark so much wants to pout at him, but he needs this man - he needs all these men to be on his side. He’s their lord now. If he can’t control this small plot of land at the edge of civilization, how can he prove he can control his own kingdom?

One look at the sky tells him that snow will start falling again soon. They should hurry up if they want to come back with enough food to last them through the next snowstorm. He squints as all the white around him suddenly becomes too much to bear looking at.

“Ask me tomorrow and maybe I’ll tell you. Right now,” he answers with a tight smile, “I will say I came to hunt some deer and we shall leave it at that.”

With those words, he dismounts from his horse and pulls down the scarf wrapped around his face. The air is so crispy with unshed snow it tickles his nose. The horse rumbles, suddenly nervous, and Mark pats his neck to calm him down.

“Wait for me here,” he murmurs. He silently gestures the other hunters scattered around them to stop and be quiet. On the candid ground, he can see the tracks of a group of deer, probably a small herd of stags, their footprints so fresh they must have left only a few moments ago.

They’ve been following them for almost an hour, always careful, always silent, but they’re white deer of the forests at the feet of the Clairs, smart beasts, extremely sensitive to the presence of humans. An entire group of hunters riding heavy snow horses is bound to alert them, so this time Mark decides he’ll go on his own.

He follows the tracks by foot, careful not to make any sound, until he reaches a wide clearing around what in spring would have been a small pond. There’s four of them. Two young males, probably at their first season without their mother. An adult next to them, maybe six or seven years, at the peak of his life. The last one is old, its antlers like the branches of a tall oak. This might be one of his last winters. Even if he can escape the wolves, the lack of food will finish him. It’s towards him that Mark points his bow.

Breathe, he thinks. Donghyuck would breathe, even if it’s an easy shoot. Donghyuck would breathe and hit the deer with his eyes closed. But it’s not Donghyuck, it’s Mark in the middle of the woods at the edges of the kingdom, and if he misses this might be the last chance he gets before the snow starts falling again, forcing him to go back to the village empty-handed. And with the winter slowly closing in on them, another day of fruitless hunt could mean that some of the people of the village will not see the end of winter.

_It won’t happen. It can’t happen. Not under Mark’s watch._

He breathes, stretches the bow until the silvery feathers of the arrow are brushing against his cheekbone.

A snowflake falls in front of him, slowly, landing on the silver tip of the arrow. It shakes slightly in front of Mark's half-closed eye.

A raven caws, up from the naked branches of a sleeping tree.

The whistle of an arrow cuts the air, right next to his left ear. He ducks out of instinct, recognizing the hiss of an arrow, an arrow he didn’t shoot.

One of the stags falls on the ground with a pained bellow, while the others run away in a flurry of ice dust.

“Your Highness, are you alright?” the son of the blacksmith asks.

“Who shot the arrow?”

It was none of them, and Mark stops them before they can run around to catch the culprit.

“Do not worry about them. Just come here and help me bring this beast home before the weather worsens.”

Besides, he doesn’t really need to catch the culprit to know who it was. The shot was too clean, even from so far away. A headshot, perfect aim, perfect balance. The arrow and the bloodstains it left on the ground are the only hints of color in the black and white landscape. A gust of wind blows, making the arrow shake, its feathers mocking Mark in a flurry of red and gold.

 

❃

 

The fire is already burning bright and warm in the oval room Mark has elected as his private study. The curtains have been drawn on the left side of the window, probably to show the view, but the blizzard outside is too thick and heavy, drowning out every other detail in a flurry of grey wind and white snow. Donghyuck is half-lying, half-sitting on the lounge, a book of fairytales on his lap, a pelt draped around his shoulders, wrapping him in a warm hug, his hair still a little damp from the kiss of the first snowflakes he stole outside. When Mark enters, followed by the son of the blacksmith, Donghyuck looks up, and the fur slides down on his shoulder, revealing a shirt half-open on his chest, the neckline deep enough to show his collarbones. Woobin, the son of the blacksmith, blushes and looks down.

Mark lays the arrow he got from the stag that was mysteriously killed during the hunt on top of the fireplace and stares resolutely at his husband.

“You sure took your time to come back,” Donghyuck says as a greeting, closing the book with a resolute thud. “A little more and it would’ve been spring already. You’re welcome, by the way.”

“I would’ve hit it,” Mark replies. He gets rid of his coat, throws it on one of the armchairs in front of the fire, gestures for Woobin to sit on the other one. The man does it gingerly, eyeing Donghyuck with wary, if not flustered, eyes. _Get used to it,_ Mark silently tells him, _it doesn’t get better._

“Yes, maybe next year,” Donghyuck mutters, then his gaze moves onto Woobin. “And you are?”

“Donghyuck, Woobin, the head of our hunters. Woobin, meet Donghyuck.”

Donghyuck, the mysterious consort prince that no one in the village has had the honor to see in the four weeks he’s stayed in Robyn. And yet Mark doesn’t introduce Donghyuck as his husband, nor as a prince. He doesn’t touch his hand or his hair or anything an Alpha would do to greet his mate in front of another man. Woobin’s eyes go from one man to the other. He flounders a little, unsure how to proceed. He almost bows, but Donghyuck waves him to stop.

“I thought there weren’t hunters in these woods. You know, your father’s land and everything,” he says, still talking to Mark. He turns to Woobin. “Isn’t poaching punishable with death? By hanging, I heard.”

Woobin pales. It’s true that poaching is illegal, and it’s true that it’s punishable by death, but the winters are too cold to survive without the furs of the animals living in the woods around the fortress, and too long to survive without extra food. Besides, the people of the borders have always ignored the law and no prince has ever come to check, until now.

“Oh, don’t make such a face, Master Hunter, I’m not going to report you to the king. Even if what you’ve been doing is forbidden.”

“Yes, it is,” Mark interrupts him. “And that law is valid both for peasants and royal consorts. But that certainly didn’t stop you today, nor it will in the future. Even if you don’t know this area and you could have easily ended up lost in the woods or crippling your horse and falling into a ditch, or…”

“Dejun came with me, I wasn’t alone.”

“Oh, yes, because Dejun knows the area so much better than you. A fool and another fool. How is it that you cloud the judgment of every guard assigned to your protection?”

Donghyuck crosses his arms and leans back, smiling a mean, angry smile.

“Why did you come looking for me, Your Highness?”

Mark wants to snap back, to be petty and tell Donghyuck that he’s the one loitering in Mark’s rooms after insisting they live in separate apartments, so he’s actually the one who comes looking for Mark. But that would sound a little like the beginning of an argument, and Donghyuck looks like he wants to argue as well. Maybe they should just let it happen. It’s been too long since their last real fight, the night they arrived in Robyn. Mark is still picking at the scars of the words Donghyuck told him that night, and although it’s only fair - after all, Donghyuck is still wearing the scars of what Mark did to him - it’s clear they’re not getting anywhere like this.

When they were in Dawyd, it was easy for Mark to make promises, to convince himself, and Donghyuck too, that they could start over, turn things around, make everything different. But, no matter how good their intentions, it just seems impossible for them to start anew. Donghyuck is still angry, reasonably so, and hurt, and when he attacks he aims for vital points, he wants to draw blood. And Mark doesn’t know how to hold back. It’s either falling or fighting back as viciously just to keep standing.

Why come looking for Donghyuck then? Why not just let him seethe on his own, circling in his room like a trapped fiend until he gets tired? Mark has so many problems, so many things to worry about. There’s the castle, falling in shambles. There’s the people in the village, succumbing to cold and starvation. There’s wolves in the woods, circling around the houses, closer and closer, waiting to get a bite of an incautious kid wandering away from home. There’s a powder keg under the royal palace of Dawyd, ready to explode as soon as he comes back home because he directly challenged the authority of the king to come back to this forsaken little town, to this irrelevant castle, and to do what? To mend his relationship with Donghyuck? Well, isn’t that going swimmingly?

Maybe Mark doesn’t know what to do most of the time, but two things he knows. First, Donghyuck was born to be a leader. He will not feel better by staying coped up at home, reading old books and shivering when the wind knocks at his window. And Mark has too much on his hands to deal with everything on his own. Second, Donghyuck is a much better shot than him.

“I came here to ask for your help,” he answers.

Donghyuck suddenly straightens up, more confused than hostile for once.

“What?”

“What you said is true, hunting is forbidden. And yet people do it anyway because they’re hungry and the food is scarce, the taxes too high for them to save up and buy supplies at the market in Saria. But the people of Robyn are farmers, not hunters. Aside from Woobin and a couple of youngsters, all the other good shots are adult men, and we need them here at the fortress if we want to fix it. This means that we are quite short of hands when it comes to hunting, which is why I have come to ask you to join the hunting parties from now on.”

Silence falls in the room when Mark finishes talking. Both Woobin and Donghyuck stare at him with wide eyes.

“Hunting is forbidden on your father’s lands,” Donghyuck says, slowly, as if trying to test Mark’s response. Mark finally lets himself fall on the only available armchair and stares resolutely at the fireplace.

“Well, last time I checked it was my land, not my father’s, and as the Lord of Robyn I have hereby decided that hunting is allowed on my woods that I have rightfully inherited. My father can present his grievances about this decision next spring, during the Council.”

That shuts Donghyuck up. He raises his hands, accepting defeat.

“But, Your Highness, it’s not that I want to question your judgment…” For a guy this tall, Woobin sure fidgets a lot. Mark sees him sneak a glance to Donghyuck before his eyes go back to Mark. “But, you know, about the Prince Consort, isn’t he an Omega?”

Donghyuck’s eyes narrow as he waits for Mark’s answer.

“He is,” Mark says. He doesn’t add anything else.

Woobin looks at Mark, then at Donghyuck, almost asking for support, but Donghyuck is only looking at Mark, refusing to move his gaze away. He looks angry, but he doesn’t feel angry through their bond. Mark can’t really tell. It’s difficult to put Donghyuck’s feelings together when he has so many.

“If you don’t have anything to add you can go, Woobin. Please notify Donghyuck of the next hunt when the weather improves.”

Woobin gets up to leave, shaking his head at the absurdity of the situation. Mark can almost read his thoughts. As if a prince hunting with them wasn’t enough, now they get to babysit an Omega prince too. Then his eyes fall on the arrow lying on top of the fireplace, its tip still red from the blood of the stag. He draws them back to Donghyuck and to the resolute frown he’s giving Mark, and he realizes a couple of things. One is that there might be more to the Prince Consort than what meets the eye. The other is that he’s intruding.

“Yes, I understand. Your Highnesses.”

After a bow to Mark and one to Donghyuck he quickly leaves the room.

Mark doesn’t hear Donghyuck getting up and walking up to the armchair, behind him. He inhales Donghyuck’s scent, more floral than sweet nowadays, and feels the warmth of Donghyuck’s fingers on his shoulders through the fabric as his husband leans down until his lips are almost brushing against Mark’s left ear. They haven’t touched each other since the first day of winter, when Donghyuck stabbed Mark’s hand with Mark’s own sword. Donghyuck’s hands slide down Mark’s forearms, almost stopping at his wrists, not daring to go over.

“What game are you trying to play, Mark of the Vale of the Giants?”

To an outsider, his languid, woolly words would feel like an invitation. Donghyuck can make everything he says taste sweet, but Mark is used to the poison seeping through his silence, in the words he doesn’t say. He leans back, basks in the warmth of the fire and in his mate’s proximity.

“I’m tired of playing games, Donghyuck, especially with you. You always win, and even when you lose you make everyone lose with you.”

Donghyuck seems to shake at his words. His scent flutters around them, tingling like the water of a pond when a dragonfly flies by.

“Your father…”

“My father is not here, both in the flesh and in spirit. The King of the Vale is not exactly powerful so close to the border, nor he is popular. No one will tell him, and even if they did I doubt it’d make him angrier than us leaving Dawyd anyway. And we do need a skilled archer, more than you can imagine.”

Donghyuck seems to mull over his words slowly. Finally, he lifts his hands from Mark’s arms and pulls back. He stays close, hovering behind Mark, watching him like a hawk.

“If you think you can order me around…”

“Am I, though? I came to ask for your help. You can refuse, if you wish. You can stay in your room, if you like that better, or you can keep sneaking out on your own when no one is looking, but the boys of the village know these woods better than me, and definitely better than Dejun.”

“If you put it like that it seems like you’re just doing me a favor, and I don’t want any favors from you.”

Mark almost laughs at Donghyuck’s words. What was it, that Jeno told him? _He won’t let you help him because he has too much pride for that, but he will help you if you ask._

“I want you to help me,” Mark repeats, slowly. “I want you to help me with this village and with this castle, because I’ve never done any of this on my own and if I fail, if _we_ fail, then we’ll just have proven my father that he has the power to control our lives and we’re nothing without him. I want us to succeed, and I need your help for that.”

“Is that everything you want from me?” Donghyuck asks, after a long beat of crackling fire and howling wind. His voice doesn’t sound sweet, not anymore. And yet, if Mark were to taste his words, they would probably be sweeter than everything Donghyuck has told him in the last month.

Mark takes a moment to choose his words, because this answer is what really tips the scale for them. He cannot be completely honest - after all, he does want everything Donghyuck can give, and yet there’s so little Donghyuck would willingly give him right now other than a knife in his back. Oh, but wouldn’t that be fun? He lets out a faint smile Donghyuck can’t see from where he’s standing behind him, to a joke Donghyuck wouldn’t understand as it happened in the privacy of Mark’s mind.

“Say, would you like to spar with me tomorrow morning?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please collect your candy if you guessed Donghyuck would stay. If you're Sof please collect a kinder surprise egg for guessing it long before the chapter was published.  
> Thank you for reading <3


	28. xxviii. as the wind and its fury do not move stones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To give a little idea of the timeline, chapter 23 happens at the beginning of November, chapter 27 is set at the beginning of December (a few weeks after they arrived in Robyn) and chapter 28 is set in the second half of December so a couple more weeks have gone by. This is just to clarify that there have been some time skips because I think we've all had enough of them not talking to each other in the first arc and I don't want to write the same dynamics again for other two or three chapters or we'll never get forward, so I'm moving right to when things start happening.  
> I still can't set a proper update schedule ;; I haven't been feeling very well this past week. I'm trying to cheer myself up with writing but it's hard. I still hope you can like this chapter even if it's quite rusty. Thank you so much for the feedback and the comments, you always make me happy. I know a few readers have told me I don't need to answer to all of them but it really makes me happy to connect with my readers so I'll keep trying to answer <3  
> Please enjoy the chapter!
> 
> \- [chapter title inspiration](https://avolitorial.tumblr.com/post/161438109357/from-translation-by-anne-carson-expansions-on)  
> \- Songs for this chapter are falling in reverse (EDEN) and Blizzard (Thomas Bergerson, Two Steps From Hell) ([playlist](https://twitter.com/aprilclaws/status/1156324062047670272))  
> \- Free promo for this [Donghyuck seeing the snow for the first time](https://twitter.com/yaori94/status/1223649166330646528) by @yaori94 + [speedpaint](https://twitter.com/yaori94/status/1225496953443799041)
> 
> #

Morning comes, reluctant and pale, and Mark almost doesn’t realize until one of the handmaids he brought from Dawyd comes knocking at his door. He groans and fights against the last tendrils of sleep, forcing his body to roll towards the edge of the bed. He slept for hours but he feels tired nevertheless, his limbs heavy and stiff, almost like all the snow blanketing the hills is weighing down on his bones too. Outside, the sun is hiding behind a veil of morning fog and frost kisses the glass of the windows. The sky is still dark.

The castle is quiet, but not in a way that speaks of desolation and abandonment. It used to be like that in the beginning, when Mark and Donghyuck first arrived in Robyn and forced the great doors of the fortress open, the wooden planks barring the gate rotten so deeply they could easily break them with their bare hands. Inside it was quiet, only dust and snow. Now the castle is still quiet, but of a silence full of whispers and giggles, of sneaky footsteps, lighter than snowflakes and yet heavy, graceless, little wet footprints on the cold marble floor, tiny fingerprints drawing suns and moons on the fogged-up windows.

Donghyuck is already in the banquet hall, surrounded by a small knot of children dressed in heavy furs. He looks up when Mark arrives, but says nothing. It’s the children that greet Mark in a shrill and yet perfectly polite chorus. They know Mark is their prince, and even if they have very little awareness of what a prince is, their parents told them to be respectful. Mark smiles and ruffles the hair of the closest girl and leans down to take his training sword from one of the benches leaning against the wall. Everyone murmurs excitedly as Donghyuck gets up and sends the kids away, telling them to go sit and not come closer.

At the corner of his eyes Mark can see that some of the older teens have also arrived, a small group of girls and two boys he recognizes as Woobin’s friends from the hunting party. They wave to him when they meet his gaze and he nods back. Some mornings they get adults too, the men working with Mark on the fortress mostly, and on the mornings when it doesn’t snow even some of the women of the village. They like to sit on the twin staircases that embrace the room, silently spying on the two princes training in sword fighting. Donghyuck never fails to put on a show when there are so many people, but for mornings like these, cold, quiet mornings full of children climbing onto each other to see the fight and pointing at cool moves with their tiny fingers, he’s usually more laidback. Today is one of those days. The line of his jaw is softer, his expression less guarded than usual. The shadow of a smile dances inside his eyes without ever reaching his lips.

Mark stretches and cracks a knot in his shoulders, then takes position in front of the empty stone throne at the end of the room. Donghyuck walks in front of him and calls to one of the young hunters standing on the side.

“Jisung, be the referee. Don’t let him cheat.”

Mark scoffs.

“As if.”

With that, it starts.

 

❃

 

The first time they fought, Donghyuck had been slower, stiffer, his form too tense to be effective. He had also been angrier, and an angry Donghyuck is a sloppy Donghyuck as well as a dangerous Donghyuck. They were alone in the empty main hall, alone with dust and snow, the crack on the ceiling letting handfuls of snowflakes inside the room, dancing around their hair. It was cold, Mark remembers, colder than today. Not crisp, not tingling, but the kind of cold that felt like being cut by a sword, warmth bleeding out of their bodies like blood from an open wound. They hadn’t kept count of the wins and losses because there hadn’t been any, just Donghyuck charging and charging, lunging for Mark as if he wanted to crack his skull open with the training sword, and Mark parring, stepping back, and then forward, and then back again. (Donghyuck had no intention of winning, Mark is sure. When you want to win, you go for hands and arms, for the legs, you try to incapacitate your enemy and make him unable to hold a sword or charge at you. But Donghyuck had no thought of strategy, or property, of technique. He had just swung his sword around with all the strength he had, like every move was an angry scream, a silent scream that could only echo in the thud of his sword against Mark’s. In the end, there was no winner and no loser. They just fought until neither of them had any strength left and there was snow in their hair, snow falling thickly between them from the hole in the ceiling.)

Now the hole in the ceiling has been repaired. Instead of the white light filtering from it, they fight at the orange glow of the torches lit at the corners of the room. Their flickering gives Donghyuck an eerie edge, like he’s some kind of fire spirit. He’s wearing simple training clothes, nothing like his usual golden embroidered outfits, but he still looks too nice for a sparring session. One of the girls sighs dreamily when he spins on himself after blocking Mark’s attack, passing the sword on his other hand to attack Mark as soon as he’s facing him again.

Smart, but Mark was expecting that. Pretty, and he was expecting that too. Donghyuck’s eyes blink in amusement when he hears the giggles he elicited in the girls with his elegant move, and Mark feels some kind of annoyance flare in him. He closes up on him, raising the rhythm and the level of their fight to force Donghyuck to fight more seriously, be more focused on keeping up with him rather than bragging with his flashy moves. That annoyance is his downfall, as Donghyuck can and indeed does bring the level up, maybe too much for it to be called friendly sparring anymore. He deflects Mark’s attack and kicks him back at the same time, hitting Mark’s sword with enough sheer force to make it fly back.

Mark finds himself sprawled on the ground with wide eyes, his sword clattering pathetically on the floor, and Donghyuck doesn’t even need to point his sword at Mark’s chest to prove he’s won.

“I thought we were taking it easy,” Mark gruntles, and Donghyuck’s eyebrows shoot up.

“We were, you’re the one who got serious all of a sudden.”

“You’re the one who wasn’t serious at all.”

Donghyuck shrugs. “If you want to show off feel free to show off, but don’t sulk just because my form is prettier than yours. It doesn’t suit you.”

Mark rolls his eyes to the ceiling and accepts his loss. At least he won the first round.

“Do you feel like going for another?” he asks, but Donghyuck shakes his head.

“Woobin wanted to go out. The wolves have gotten close to the village again,” he murmurs, lowering his voice so that the kids don’t hear him. Mark sighs. Donghyuck looks torn, like he wants to offer Mark a helping hand for a moment, but Mark doesn’t wait for the whole inner conflict to show up on his face. He pulls himself up on his own, rubbing his hands together to clear them of the dust.

“Come on kids, the show is over. Go back before your parents start worrying about you.”

“As if. They all know the children like to play here,” Donghyuck says with a scoff. They collect the training swords and put them on one of the benches again. “Will you be able to join us tomorrow?”

He sounds almost hopeful, or maybe it’s Mark who’s the hopeful one. It is not often that he gets to hunt with Donghyuck, too busy directing the people working at the castle. Only sometimes he manages to sneak out and join the hunters outside. When he does, Donghyuck always rides next to him. They don’t talk, but Mark feels the weight of Donghyuck’s eyes resting against his face, insistent and shameless. Who knows what he’s thinking. He rarely looks back because Donghyuck would just turn to the other side if he did and Mark doesn’t want him to stop staring yet.

 _Look at me,_ he thinks. _Keep looking at me._.

“Tomorrow? What are you going to do tomorrow?”

“Woobin said he wanted to follow the creek up to those caves on the side of the mountain. There might even be bears there.”

“Bears can’t be eaten and they don’t attack during winter unless they are disturbed. If you find one, I kindly suggest you don’t disturb it.”

Donghyuck smiles at him, saccharine and cold at the same time.

“Maybe you should come with us to make sure I don’t.”

Mark raises his hands up in defeat. “I’d love to come, you know I do, but Master Kim said we need to finish the walls before the next snowstorm if we want the people of the village to be able to move inside with us.”

“Will it be so bad, this next snowstorm? We’ve had a few already, what makes this one different?”

“The wind will be quite strong. It might even sweep away some of the houses. That’s why we must finish quickly. If we don’t, it will deal even more damage to the main structure.”

“But you’re almost done, right?”

Mark nods. “Almost. We still have to fix most of the servants’ quarters, but at least the kids will be able to play in the courtyard without having to worry about getting stolen by the winds or eaten by a stray wolf.”

Donghyuck looks down, almost pouting.

“Wolves and bears… You have such vicious animals in your woods,” Donghyuck says, with a sigh. “Good thing we came along.”

It’s strange to hear Donghyuck saying _we_ , as if he and Mark are something more than two people forced to stay together all the time. It’s strange, but lately he’s been saying it more and more.

 _Good think you decided to come along_ , he thinks.

“Be safe out there.”

Donghyuck almost smiles.

“I’ll see you tonight.”

 

❃

 

When Mark comes back to his rooms at night, the table is always set, the curtains are always pinned to the side to show the falling snow, and Donghyuck is usually sprawled lazily on the sofa in front of the fire, slowly turning the pages of an old book or sipping sweet wine, humming softly to himself.

Sometimes, Mark tells him about his day - how the renovations are going, the conversations he had with the people of the village. He tells him about the cobbler and the carpenter and the midwife who ran away with a man from Saira, the things the men of the village tell him as they slowly work on the castle together. They often talk about the hunters. Mark usually interacts with the older boys. They are quiet, honed by many harsh winters and short, tiring summers spent working in the fields of Saira as seasonal workers. They never know how to act in front of an Omega who shoots better than them but they are always friendly towards Mark, a fellow Alpha. There’s Woobin, the son of the blacksmith, who knows the woods like the inside of his pockets and is universally acknowledged by everyone as the leader of their little ragtag hunter group, and his best friend Jongsuk, the best shot of the entire village, although not as good as Donghyuck - no one is as good as Donghyuck, really. Unlike Mark, Donghyuck made fast friends with the younger hunters instead. Minho, who’s afraid of heights, Soyeon, the daughter of the butcher and the only girl in the village who knows how to handle sharp weapons, the first Jisung, who talks too loud and scares all the rabbits, and the second Jisung, the youngest hunter, who always trails behind Donghyuck’s horse, staring at the young Omega prince with big, enamored eyes like it’s his only job. Donghyuck tells Mark about the hunts, how they chased a stag together or found a snow fox in the woods, or how they were almost ambushed by a bunch of wolves. Mark glares at him, thinks about telling Donghyuck to be careful but never does. How pretentious of him, to think Donghyuck needs his advice.

“Aren’t there any big predators in the islands?” Mark asks tonight, interrupting Donghyuck in the middle of the description of an old boar who charged against his horse.

“Not really. We have small animals. Hares and rabbits, though we have to hunt them often to keep the population down or they eat all of our orchards.”

Mark scoffs. “Is that how you got so good with your bow? Because you could only shoot small animals?”

Donghyuck shrugs off the compliment like it personally offends him, but Mark can tell he’s pleased.

“The bigger islands have fallow deer and foxes,” Donghyuck explains. “Goats too. And there’s always a lot of birds. Sea birds nest in the Coraline all the time, make the servants go crazy to clean after their shit.” Mark lets out a scandalized noise, but Donghyuck’s eyes twinkle, challenging him to say anything. “Dejun says you curse a lot when you’re training the recruits, so I don’t accept constructive criticism on my foul language, Your Highness.”

“And here I thought that your tongue was as golden as your hair, Your Grace. You cuss like a sailor.”

“That’s because I am one, Your Highness.” Donghyuck turns, angling his body towards Mark and leaning over to prop himself against the table, supporting his face with his cupped hands.

“You wanted predators? We have those too. We might not have bears, but we get sharks. They’re vicious, especially after shipwrecks. And whales.”

“Whales are not predators.”

Donghyuck laughs out loud at that, and the sound surprises Mark, leaves him speechless. When was the last time he heard Donghyuck laugh? When was the last time it wasn’t angry and bitter and sharp?

“There are many things in the sea you know nothing about, Mark of the Vale of the Giants. Flesh-eating whales are not the strangest. We also have seagulls big enough to catch a lamb in their beak and fly away with it.”

“That is bullshit, and you know it.”

Donghyuck gulps down his wine in one shot. His cheeks are ruddy, his hair falls messily over his eyes. It makes Mark thinks, as he rolls the wine inside his goblet, if this is the Donghyuck Jeno knew all along, his tongue not golden but silver, his laugh argentine, mischief sparkling in his eyes. This is the Donghyuck Mark never got to see but only heard about from Dongsoon. King of pranks, quick-witted, always, always talking. A good liar, even better at telling the truth. Young Mark wouldn’t have been able to keep up with such a force of nature. Present Mark wants nothing more than a chance to keep up with such a force of nature.

Donghyuck reaches for more wine and Mark snatches the bottle away and pours it himself. Donghyuck glares at him for a moment, but accepts the goblet when it’s full. He just stares at Mark until he pours one for himself as well.

The silver goblets clink shyly when they bump them together before taking each a sip of the strong wine.

“Say,” Donghyuck asks, suddenly, making the red liquid swirl in his cup. “Why are we really here? Please don’t feed me the bullshit about spending time away from the palace to save our failing relationship. You had already decided to come here before you asked me, which means you would’ve come anyway, even if I had said no. Besides, if you really wanted to focus on me you would’ve just taken me to some nice place near the coast and pampered me there.”

“You make it sound like it’s so easy to please you,” Mark says with a sigh.

“Am I not helping you?” Donghyuck murmurs, and what he’s really asking is, _don’t I deserve the truth?_

Mark throws his head back and finishes all his wine in one sip. The fire is slowly dying, telling them it’s time to go to sleep. Yet it’s nice to be here, with Donghyuck. It’s nice to listen to Donghyuck talking, it’s nice to talk knowing Donghyuck is listening. They never got to have this, back in Dawyd. They never got to have anything nice there.

“My uncle, the Lord of Gyr, thinks something is stirring on the other side of the border,” Mark says slowly, while looking into Donghyuck’s eyes.

Donghyuck straightens up and puts down his goblet.

“On the other side? The Empire?” he asks, under his breath.

Mark shakes his head.

“The danger comes from the borderlands of the Empire, but they don’t seem to be the ones behind it. To be honest, Prince Jaemin told me they are worried as well. Raiders from the Wild Lands burned many of their villages last fall.”

“Since when do you trust Prince Jaemin?”

“I don’t. But my uncle said the people who attacked the Clairs weren’t Imperial soldiers, and they didn’t seem bandits from the Empire either.”

Donghyuck frowns. He leans back and opens one of the books from the tall pile he has built next to the sofa. It’s an atlas, a kind gift Taeyong sent a few weeks ago when Mark complained about the lack of reading materials in Robyn. The book is slammed on the table carelessly, Donghyuck’s movements rushed by the wine and the urgency to confirm whatever thought he’s running in his pretty head, and Mark watches him carefully turn the pages until they stop on a map of the Clairs and the surrounding lands. His eyes narrow.

“What did your father say about it?” he asks, without looking up. His finger follows the river that from Gyr cascades down the mountains right next to the Fortress of Robyn, before tumbling down the Gate. After all, the fortress was built to protect the only pass that allows access to the Vale, and as today that’s still its main purpose.

“What do you think? If my father had any intention to do something about it, would we really be here? He doesn’t trust my uncle and doesn’t want to send more of his men here, too afraid they’ll be more loyal to the Lord of Gyr than to the king in the end.”

“But you trust your uncle, don’t you?”

_You trust him more than your father._

Donghyuck doesn’t say it. He could, for this is the fortress of Robyn and there’s no one but a couple of old servants who have raised Mark since he was a child here. The soldiers are all sleeping in their quarters, far away from the rooms of the princes. The people of the village have no interest in spying on them on behalf of the king, and the guard on patrol tonight, Dejun… Dejun knows where his loyalty lies. Mark saved him from a life of petty crimes. The king just tried to get one of his hands cut for theft. Even if he was eavesdropping, he would never tell on Mark.

 _We’re safe here,_ Mark wants to tell Donghyuck. _We can be honest with each other. We can talk without fear._

“I don’t know if there will be a war. My uncle could be wrong, everything could still happen. Maybe these raiders will never come back, and yet what if it was true? If an army of raiders from the Wild Lands launched an attack on us…”

“This old, wrecked place wouldn’t be able to stop anything,” finishes Donghyuck for him. “And that’s why you came here.”

“And that’s why _we_ came here.”

Donghyuck closes the book and leans back, burrowing into the velveteen pillows of the sofa. The fire has died down, leaving behind red embers hiding under the ashes. Donghyuck stares at their soft glow with his brow furrowed for a long moment.

“Thank you for telling me,” he murmurs, and as he says it he looks almost annoyed that Mark really told him the truth. Maybe he was expecting an evasive answer, maybe he was expecting nothing at all. The words of the Royal Physician echo in Mark’s head. If he doesn’t trust you, just trust him first. That’s the only trick he has left to wear down Donghyuck’s defenses, to drain his cold indifference.

“You’re welcome, Donghyuck.”

Donghyuck shakes at the casual use of his name. They’ve been calling each other Your Highness and Your Grace for weeks now.

“Goodnight, Your Highness,” he answers stiffly.

Mark lets his husband leave and, when he’s gone, he sits down on the sofa, curls himself in the warmth Donghyuck left behind, in his sweet scent. He misses holding Donghyuck. He misses touching him. He misses the sparkles exploding in his chest whenever their mouths met in the middle. But he likes talking to Donghyuck, he likes to hear about his day. He likes to pour him wine and to ask him for advice and he likes to talk about defensive strategies and wildlife and legends and the gossips the few travelers bring from the feud of Saira. It’s silly, because Donghyuck is cross with him, Donghyuck won’t touch him, and he certainly won’t let Mark touch him instead. And yet it feels, some days, it feels like Mark has never been closer to Donghyuck, like he’s never seen Donghyuck as clearly as he’s seeing him in these cold, dusty corridors, haunted by the wind, sieged by the snow. Donghyuck with long curly hair, riding a horse, a bow in his hands. Donghyuck sitting cross-legged on the carpet in front of the fireplace. Donghyuck humming songs. Sparring under the snow, wearing a simple tunic and heavy boots. Falling asleep with a book on his lap. This person, whom Mark has married many months ago, it’s like he’s showing his true self for the first time. He makes Mark’s heart ache for something he can’t grasp, someone who’s already slipped through his fingers.

 

❃

 

There’s no duel the following morning. The hunters leave before dawn, in silence and complete darkness. When Mark wakes up, Donghyuck is long gone, his only goodbye a dream in which he tiptoed in Mark’s room to card his fingers through Mark’s hair, kissing his brow so softly it could’ve been nothing more than the whisper of a kiss rather than the dream of one.

There is no sparring practice, no dance under the snow for them today. Mark gets dressed and joins the men working on the walls.

“Donghyuck said they were going up the mountain following the creek.”

Blacksmith Kim, whose name really is Sangjoong but is called by everyone Blacksmith Kim, stops examining the stone wall he has just finished patching up to look back at his prince.

“Aye, that’s what Bin told me,” he answers.

“There might be bears in those caves.”

“My son isn’t that stupid. He knows better than to poke a sleeping bear. They’re just looking for food.” He must see the way Mark’s expression doesn’t relax because he sighs like he was dealing with a stubborn child. “They’ll be fine, Your Highness. Besides, that Omega prince of yours is the best archer in the country, according to Bin and every other hunter of the village.”

“He’s not so bad,” Mark admits, with badly concealed pride. “He doesn’t have many chances to practice in the Vale. You know the law.”

“What a fucking waste,” calls Old Yoo, the carpenter of the village. “If my Suhwa was able to shoot that well I would never leave her at home, Omega or not.”

The other men nod half-heartedly. Of course, this isn’t Dawyd, where Omegas are allowed to stay at home and groom themselves for their spouses. These are poor people, used to fight tooth and nail for survival every day. In Robyn, like in any of the other small villages in the countryside, Omegas work as much as everyone else.

“It’s the same in the Islands, where my husband came from. That’s probably why he likes it here better than Dawyd.” He gets up and pats his knees a little to get rid of a smudge of dust. “Sometimes I wonder if this wasn’t a mistake. Maybe I should have just let him go back to the Islands. They treat people like him better than we do.”

“And what about the bond? You’re mated, aren’t you? Some things are not that easy to solve, Your Highness.”

Mark almost laughs. “It’s easier to solve a bond than to change a law in Dawyd, Master Kim.”

The blacksmith does laugh, right in Mark’s face. “That is true for everyone Your Highness, everyone but the future king.”

 

❃

 

They leave Old Yoo in charge of testing the walls and head back, the blacksmith walking next to Mark instead of behind him like anyone else would in Dawyd. Mark doesn’t really mind. The blacksmith is an impressive man. He’s led Robyn quite well in the past few years and the people respect him because he’s stern but fair, and he’s honorable. He almost reminds Mark of his uncle, the Lord of Gyr. Both are men worthy of walking side by side with him instead of behind. Besides, it’s so much easier to chat with someone who’s not scared to offend you.

“Speaking of the Consort Prince, Your Highness.” The blacksmith must see the cold flash passing in Mark’s eyes because he almost takes a step back. Almost. Brave, on top of everything else, Mark thinks. “If I am allowed to ask, of course.”

“What about him?”

“Rumor is that you’re not sleeping together.”

“It is quite common, among royals, not to share a room,” Mark mutters, prickled by the words. His answer, at least, is not a lie. If Mark hadn’t insisted and fought with the chamberlain in the beginning they would’ve never slept in the same room, only meeting for coupling as etiquette requires.

“Rumor is that you even spent your rut alone after you arrived,” the blacksmith continues, and Mark looks down, annoyed.

“For such a small village, it sure is noisy.”

“There’s not much to do around here but talk, and you’re the most interesting thing that happened to the village in the last three generations. Our kids have grown fond of their new princes, but they often ask why you two look so sad all the time. Some of us old folks might be curious as well.”

Mark lets the man inside his study room and pours him a cup of wine. His smile is tight.

“One of the reasons I decided to leave Dawyd was that people were too curious,” he says slowly, a veiled warning. “I don’t care if you and the rest of Robyn wonder, but don’t make Donghyuck uncomfortable. I brought him here so that he could find some peace.”

“I apologize if I overstepped my boundaries, Your Highness.”

Mark waves his hand and he’s going to tell the blacksmith it doesn’t matter when the man’s eyes widen just as the room gets darker. Outside the window, thick clouds are amassing, painting the sky an ominous black.

“What’s happening?” Mark asks.

“The snowstorm! It’s starting! We need to go down there and tidy up. Everything that is not secured will be carried away by the wind.”

“It’s early, shouldn’t it have been here the day after tomorrow?”

The man clicks his tongue and doesn’t answer, and Mark finds himself following him outside as they cross the fortress with heavy steps.

“Your Highness, I will need your permission to bring the people inside the castle. I doubt all of the houses of the village will be able to survive this wind.” As he talks, the wind howls, making the window clatter.

“Fuck!” Mark mutters. “Fuck, I’ll tell the handmaids to close all the shutters and secure the doors. You bring the people inside.”

He stops in his tracks, eyes glancing at the mountain standing tall, white and distant, outside the window. “Wait, what about the hunters? They’re still out there!”

The blacksmith doesn’t even stop. He’s already at the door when he answers.

“They should be fine. Don’t worry about them, my son will take them to the caves. If they don’t walk too deep inside they won’t meet any wild animals and they’ll at least be able to find repair from the storm.”

The bond inside Mark curls on itself, slippery, like a satin ribbon refusing to be tied into a knot. Donghyuck is fine, far away, cold and lost and uncomfortable, but he’s fine.

_He must be._

 

❃

 

They manage to bring everyone inside before the real storm starts. Some of the girls arrive holding their chickens, or dragging inside a goat, a pig, a donkey. A few of the men bring their horses to the stable. The wind is howling, uselessly clawing at the stones surrounding the castle, but the walls have just recently been repaired and there’s nothing the wind can do but topple the few empty houses in front of the fortress, playing with abandoned barrels and the toys the children left behind. They can hear them clatter from the banquet hall of the fortress, where all the people have found shelter, since most of the fortress is still uninhabitable.

Mark paces in front of the door like a trapped lion for hours until Eunjung, one of the servants who came with him from Dawyd, sends him back to his room.

“The prince will be fine,” she says. “I’m sure he has already found a place to stay. You, however, you need to rest, and you need to let everyone else rest as well. You’re making them nervous.”

There’s no way Mark can argue with that. So he goes to his room, kicks the door closed at his back. The sofa is cold, but it still bears a trace of Donghyuck’s sweet scent. Mark clings onto it, buries his head in the pillows to chase the ghost of the warmth Donghyuck left behind. He tugs on the bond between them, finds only a small comfort in the way the bond pulls back, as if Donghyuck can hear his call and is answering him, wherever he is.

 _Where are you?_ Mark asks to the dark sky. _You didn’t even say goodbye. Please come home._

The storm lasts two days and two nights. As soon as the sky has cleared, Mark is already in the courtyard, mounting on his horse despite everyone’s protests. The bond inside him slithers like a scared snake.

“Your Highness, please calm down. The storm is not over. It’s only slowed down for a few hours. It will start again soon, even stronger than before.”

“They’ve been up there for days,” Mark growls, and the entire room falls silent. “We don’t know when it will stop once it starts again, and I need to get him back. I need to find him before something-”

It’s a frantic speech, words rushing all over each other, almost unintelligible. He points towards the mountain, barely visible under the veil of clouds ailing the storm. He points towards the mountain, and before he can finish the sentence the mountain cracks, right in front of his eyes. It’s a dry, sharp sound, like a snap - and Mark does not know whether it comes from outside or inside him, whether it is the mountain or the bond between him and Donghyuck, pulled taut, stretched beyong its limit, finally tearing apart with a sound of broken paper and broken heart. He only knows that something is moving, the entire mountain is moving, right in front of his eyes, sliding down the steep edges in an explosion of white that tramples over and engulfs everything in its wake.

It’s an avalanche, and Mark can only watch as it thunders towards the valley devouring his words, his lands, and, somewhere in the middle of that white hell, his most precious person.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mark: time to rebuild the relationship with my husband and also this fortress  
> snow: i'm about to destroy this man’s whole career
> 
> in the next chapter: and there was only one bed, but they could regrettably not sleep in it.


	29. xxix. so does nothing speak to nothing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ended up writing a lot more than I thought so some things I have anticipated will happen on next chapter and not on this one. (There was only one bed scene, I'm talking about you.) However, I ended up writing a lot because this chapter represents a kinda big change in their dynamics, and while I wanted this change to happen I don't know if this is the right time to make it happen, and because of this I rewrote this chapter a few times and I am not happy with it at all. Lol I'm so unhappy I could feed the whole chapter to the flames if only I didn't have to write it again, and once was enough, I'm not going through it a second time.  
> I also used this snowstorm mess to introduce something about the a/b/o dynamics of this universe that I have completely invented myself. So if you've never heard of it before, it's totally normal, and if you don't understand how it works you can either ask in the comments or you can wait for the next chapter where further explanations will be given.  
> Also this is unbetaed and I'll check it out again tomorrow, so forgive any mistakes until then ;;  
> I don't remember what else I wanted to write in these notes but yeah, as usual, I love your comments. You give me so many ideas and knowing which parts you liked or disliked also really helps. And I love talking to you!! I know not everyone can follow me on twitter because I'm probably either super boring or super annoying, but I'm glad we have this platform to communicate and you always choose to support me and tell me to be healthy and eat and drink and sleep. Since my sister left I've been feeling very sad, so writing and sleeping are the only things I've been doing. I can't guarantee any kind of quality because I get extra bad at everything when I'm depressed, but I'm still grateful that you're worrying about me and telling me to focus on myself first. You're the best readers and I love you very much.
> 
>  
> 
> \- [chapter title inspiration](https://avolitorial.tumblr.com/post/161438109357/from-translation-by-anne-carson-expansions-on)  
> \- Songs for this chapter are Hurts Like Hell by Fleurie, love; not wrong (brave) by EDEN and Hate me by Eurielle ([playlist](https://twitter.com/aprilclaws/status/1156324062047670272))  
> \- Free promo for [Donghyuck wearing Mark's colors](https://bigfatkiss4mark.tumblr.com/post/190733349052/honeymouthed-after-many-months-spent-hidden-away) by bigfatkiss4mark on tumblr, please give it some love <3<3<3
> 
> #

The worst is not arguing with servants and commoners and his own soldiers for the permission to leave - Mark is their future king, but somehow they all think they can tell him what to do - nor struggling endlessly against the snow as he climbs the fucking mountain in order to reach the damn caves - slowly, carefully, trying not to cripple the horse, gritting his teeth because he can’t go faster than this even if his heart is already rushing up there. It’s not even dealing with the wolves who surround him, Hendery and Hongwon in the woods, trying to get an easy meal out of their mounts. The worst is doing all of this while knowing Donghyuck is hurt.

The bond that was severed during the avalanche, probably out of shock, reestablished itself only a few moments later in the most traumatic way, as a scream for help. Mark doesn’t know what happened to make Donghyuck’s mind ache and pull, yearning for his mate’s presence with an urgency that was more visceral than rational. He just knows thar Donghyuck hasn’t called for him like this ever before. It lasted but a moment, but it was enough to bring Mark down to his knees, holding his head in a futile attempt stop the pain, the panic, the confusion flowing freely inside him through the bond. It lasted but a moment, and since then all Mark has been able to feel from Donghyuck is pain and cold.

“How long will it take?” Mark asks.

Soyeon, the daughter of the butcher, takes a long look at the mountainside, eyes narrowed as all the white threatens to blind her even with the little sunlight filtering through the clouds. She wasn’t Mark’s first choice for a guide - she doesn’t know the mountain well like Old Yoo or the blacksmith do - but she was light enough to ride with Hongwon, allowing them to go up with horses instead of by foot and saving a lot of precious time.

“We’re almost there,” she answers, turning around so that Mark can hear her words despite the strong wind.

Her face is pale from worry. She’s the only one from the group of hunters who didn’t leave three days ago, too busy helping her mother with her sister’s heat. She didn’t go and she saved herself, but it’s no use when her older brother is up there, her best friends are up there, most of the boys of the village are up there, just like Mark’s husband, and Mark can see in her eyes the same urgency that shakes his chest.

“The river should’ve been around this area, but the snow must have covered it. We’ll have to go slow.”

Mark blinks. “The river? We’ve crossed the border into the Clairs?”

Soyeon blinks, unsure. Of course, the people or Robyn don’t know when the border is, but Mark has hunted in these woods with Johnny for too many years not to recognize his surroundings. If only the snowslide hadn’t buried all the landmarks.

“I don’t know where the border is, Your Highness, but I know where the caves are. And we’re close.”

“Assuming Master Woobin brought them here,” Hendery mutters, low enough that only Mark hears it. “Assuming they made it in time. They could already be buried under all this snow for what we know.”

Mark ignores him. He cannot speak for the others, but Donghyuck is alive. Hurt, in pain, in danger for sure, but alive. Mark can feel his every breath, stuck between bone and tissue, riding the bond like it’s a wave that takes him back to Mark.

“Lead the way,” he tells Soyeon.

“Mark.” Hendery’s horse trots next to Mark’s own. They’ve been friends for years, and Mark values Hendery’s quick, rational thinking and the fact that the boy is always, eventually right. Today, though, today he doesn’t know what to do with Hendery’s rationality.

“Don’t,” he says, but Hendery insists.

“Listen to me. It took two hours to get up here. We’ll have to go back as soon as it starts snowing if we want to make it back to the fortress and not end up blocked like the hunters, or worse, caught in the middle of another avalanche. We can’t just keep looking blindly-”

“I’m not coming back without him.”

“I cannot allow you-”

“I’m the future king-”

“You’ll never be king if I let you die in this idiotic way.”

“Guys,” Hongwon’s calm voice calls them. “Keep it down, we don’t want to cause another snowslide, don’t we?”

Mark bites his bottom lip and Hendery sighs.

“I swear to the Goddess, it’s like babysitting an infant,” he says under his breath.

Mark turns towards him, his hand already on the pommel of the sword.

“Hey,” Hongwon warns them again, and just like that Soyeon lets out a choked gasp and starts wriggling on the horse until a quite embarrassed Hongwon lets her down.

“We’re here,” she says, pointing to a white slope. “The entrance was here, it must have been covered by the snow.”

She starts poking at the snow with her foot but Hongwon stops her.

“Wait, Milady, you might get hurt like that. Mark, come closer! Do you hear anything?”

Oh, but Mark doesn’t need to listen to hear Donghyuck’s labored breath. His chest aches with it. He feels pain, Donghyuck’s pain, and not cold, not anymore. Donghyuck is burning up.

“Not there,” he says, walking around the slope. Judging by the tree branches emerging from the snow like naked undead arms, there’s enough snow to bury a horse. But underneath there is stone. And under the stone there’s a boy unmistakably calling for Mark. “Here. They’re right here.”

He sticks his sword, still sheathed, in one of the mounds of snow, letting it sink as much as it can before pulling it back up. Then he plunges it down again, moving around until it hits stone.

“Here,” he says, “that’s where the entrance is.” He lets the sword hit the stone, again and again, almost as if he’s knocking. That’s when they hear voices, stifled and desperate and so thin.

It’s Woobin. Mark recognizes his friend Jongsuk too and after a beat then the unmistakable voice of Dejun. He doesn’t hear Donghyuck, but he can feel his presence, so feeble, and he can feel that Donghyuck can barely move, let alone get up to call him.

“Let’s start digging,” he says. “We don’t have much time.”

It takes them more than one hour of combined effort from inside and outside to finally free the entrance of the cave. Woobin sighs in relief when Soyeon dashes past him to hug her brother. Then the son of the blacksmith sees Mark and it’s like all the blood drains from his body at once.

“Where is he?” Mark asks, voice low.

It’s Dejun who answers. He’s bleeding from a bad gash on his arm and there’s a giant bruise on his chest and shoulder. He looks like he can barely hold himself up together but he’s still trying not to show any weakness in front of his prince, not after he failed to do the only thing Mark had asked of him.

“He’s in the back. We tried to light a fire, but-”

Mark walks right past him. Hendery catches Dejun before he can fall and Hongwon asks him what happened, but Mark doesn’t hear any of that. He strides past the small group of boys, pale and shaken, huddling together to warm up. It’s dark in the cave, and cold, and humid, but all Mark can feel is a sick warmth spreading through his chest. Donghyuck really is in the back, propping himself up against the cold wall of the cave, his face flushed and pale at the same time, damp with sweat. One of his legs is wrapped in makeshift bandages, probably made from someone’s scarf or the hem of a cape. Red has leaked through the fabric, not much but not little either. Jisung, the second Jisung, the small one, son of the cordwainer, is kneeling next to him and cleansing the sweat from his brow. Donghyuck weakly slaps his hand away when Mark enters, then he looks up and smiles, hazy and feverish.

“Didn’t I tell you? You should’ve come here to make sure I didn’t get myself in trouble.”

That’s when Mark sees the black bear lying motionless on the other mouth of the cave, arrows on its mouth, its neck, its back, and an unmistakable red and golden one sticking from one of its dead eyes.

 

❃

 

“Jisung was exploring the cave, trying to see if there was something we could use to make a fire on the other side.” From where he’s still kneeling next to Donghyuck, Jisung looks down, unable to meet Mark’s eyes. Woobin steps closer, almost like he wants to distract Mark and make him forget about the younger boy. “It was my fault. I was checking the entrance, trying to see if it was safe to walk outside, and then the mountain started shaking and everything went to shit.”

“The avalanche,” Hongwon says.

“Yes, it blocked the entrance, and it woke up that thing.”

“Woobin is lying. It was my fault, Your Highness,” Jisung says.

“No, it was mine,” Dejun interrupts him. “I tried to stop the prince from charging at the bear but I wasn’t close enough, and…”

“Silence.”

Mark doesn’t care whose fault it was. He could have Jisung hanged, hell, he could have Dejun hanged too. He could have any and every one of them hanged just for letting Donghyuck shed a single drop of blood, and that wouldn’t do absolutely anything to deter Donghyuck from doing the single most stupid and dangerous thing he could dream of at the next chance he gets.

 _Stupid boy,_ Mark thinks. Stupid beautiful boy. _How dare you scare me like this. How dare you._

He kneels down next to his husband and Donghyuck opens his eyes again. Even that seems to take all his effort, but he still tries to reach for Mark with a shaky hand. Mark meets it halfway, linking their fingers together and drawing it between his palms. It’s the first time they touch skin to skin in weeks. Mark wanted this moment to be sweet, he wanted it to be warm and soft and meaningful. Donghyuck’s whole body seems to be burning, but his hand is cold - cold and sticky with dried blood. Mark rubs it slightly, tenderly, and Donghyuck’s lashes flutter close as he sighs.

“The prince was trying to help Jisung, but he was knocked down,” Minho explains. “The bear got his leg, but Master Dejun stepped in and forced it to let the prince go. Then we all finished it with the arrows. The prince looked fine. We thought it was a superficial wound… It wasn’t even deep, and the leg wasn’t crushed. But then he collapsed.”

“The wound might not have been serious, but the fatigue and the cold might have caused the fever,” Hongwon says. “You were here for two days without food and water. Not even a fire to keep you warm... I'm surprised only the prince collapsed.”

He comes closer, puts a hand on Donghyuck’s forehead. Mark feels a growl trapped in his throat, irrational and angry even for that small, completely justified touch, but Hongwon ignores him and leans down to untie the slip of fabric tied around Donghyuck’s leg.

Donghyuck groans and squeezes Mark’s hand, but forces himself to stay still until Hongwon is done.

“How does it look?” Donghyuck asks with a polite, exhausted smile.

“Better than I thought, Your Highness.”

Mark leans over to take a look. The boy was right, at least. The wound doesn’t look deep nor infected, although it’s ugly in a way only being chewed by a bear can look. Hongwon quickly wraps clean bandages around Donghyuck's leg, then turns towards Mark. “He has a fever, of course, and he lost a lot of blood, but he will most likely heal properly if we treat him immediately.”

“I can take him down by horse, and Hendery can come with me with Dejun. Would you mind staying back with the hunters? It might take a few more hours for them to come down.”

Hongwon nods tersely and goes to organize the hunters.

Mark kneels down next to Donghyuck.

“I need to pick you up,” he murmurs. Unsurprisingly, Donghyuck doesn’t look too happy about that.

“Can’t anyone else do it?” he asks, in a childish, cranky tone, and Mark has to stop himself from snapping back in retaliation.

“No, Your Grace, I would be very upset if someone were to touch you.”

“I’m not afraid of upsetting you,” Donghyuck replies, almost amiably.

“I am aware, as you are probably aware I am, in fact, already quite upset with you. But not everyone can afford to upset me without suffering any consequences Donghyuck. See, I’m gonna slay anyone who lays a hand on you in front of me.”

Donghyuck scoffs, and Mark can feel the telltale signs of a fight, an ugly one - one he definitely doesn’t want to have in front of so many strangers who are already too curious about his relationship with his mate. Donghyuck gets sharp and mean when he’s in pain, and he must be in a lot of pain between the wound and the fever. This is not a fight Mark would be able to win without shedding blood - Donghyuck’s, sure, and most of his own.

“Let’s put it like this. If I am the one carrying you, you’ll be able to complain to me all the way down to Robyn. I’m sure nothing gives you more joy than nagging at me.”

“You give yourself too much credit, Your Highness. Nothing about you gives me joy.”

Mark gives him a sympathetic smile as he leans down to hook a hand under his knees, the other one curling around his torso.

“Better find some joy in nagging at me then because it’s the only thing you’ll be able to do until next spring. See if I let you out again after you managed to get mauled to death by a bear.”

Donghyuck turns his head on the other side and bites his bottom lip as Mark picks him up. Still, a pained moan escapes him when his injured leg dangles awkwardly mid-air. Despite his big, poisonous words, he swings an arm around Mark’s neck and closes his eyes, letting out a sigh of relief against Mark’s chest.

“Are we all ready?” Mark asks.

“It’s started snowing again. We better get out of here,” Hendery calls.

Mark nods. Then, the ground shakes again.

 

❃

 

The second avalanche is not as big as the first. It doesn’t clog the entrance of the cave, at least, but it does cover the entire side of the mountain in white, eventually blanketing every kind of landmark they could have used to go back to Robyn without falling into a ditch.

“We can’t go down this side anymore,” Woobin explains, when he comes back inside. Mark loops up from where he was kneeling on the ground, holding Donghyuck’s hands in his own in an attempt to keep him warm.

“It’s already started snowing again. Even with your horses, the storm will be at full force before you reach the valley. If we leave now we can avoid it, cross the river and climb down the other side of the mountain, into Saira’s lands. It’s safer, because the storm is hitting this versant only, but it will take at least two days to go back to Robyn. But it will be a gamble. Not only there could as well be another avalanche there too, but the prince cannot possibly travel like that for two days.”

“He can’t stay here either,” Hendery says. “Nor can we. We need to leave, now.”

“And dying under the snow?” Jongsuk asks.

“That, or dying in this cave without doing anything. We don’t know when the storm will end, this might be our only chance for days.”

“Mark, what do we do?” Hendery asks.

Mark looks at Donghyuck. He looked a little better whenthey got to the caves, but now he looks exhausted, the fever eating at his eyes and tugging his lashes down. Will he survive if they stay here? For how long? Without a fire, without clean clothes or food or water, or medicines. What about outside, in the snow? With wolves and wind, with ice on his brow? In the end, it doesn’t matter what they decide. Here or out there, Donghyuck needs to be treated immediately and neither option allows that. What is Mark supposed to do now?

“Your Highness,” Hongwon calls.

Mark doesn’t know what to do. He is only vaguely aware that they’re all looking at him, his three knights and the hunters of Robyn, waiting for his order while the storm brews outside. They will follow it, for he’s their future king, and while he might not have all the answers, they only need one, the one Mark will give them. It doesn’t even matter if it’s the right one. It will be the right one because it’s the rightful one. It will be the right one because a prince can’t ever be wrong, and Mark is a prince. He’s royalty, raised to rule.

Except Mark wasn’t raised to rule - Sungmin was, until destiny decided otherwise. Mark was raised to follow, always, to live for his king and and never question anything, until one day someone put a crown on his head and told him that, _here, Your Highness the Crown Prince, from now on you will lead instead of following, from now on no one will ever be able to question you._ Was the Mark wearing that crown different from the Mark without it? They were exactly the same person - Mark would know, for he is both of them. There is nothing holy in his decisions, nothing rightful, he’s just a boy with a crown. There is no reason for the people in this room to ask him to decide what to do, to look at him and wait for his decision. And yet, isn’t that what they’re doing? Even now that he’s not wearing any crown, even now that he’s just a powerless boy in the throes of a storm too big for him to handle. They all look at him.

(Only Donghyuck doesn’t look. He shakes and breathes deeply, unevenly, his eyes closed. And a prince can’t be wrong, but if Mark kills Donghyuck with a wrong decision he was allowed to take just because he wears a fucking crown, nothing, not even his crown will be able take him back. A crown is just a piece of rusted gold, after all, while Donghyuck is golden all over, and incredibly more precious. And Mark doesn't know what he would do if he lost him. He doesn't know what to do not to lose him.)

“Mark, we have no time,” Hendery says, softly. “You have to take a decision.”

Mark knows, he knows, but that doesn't make it easier. Why him? Why does this responsibility have to weight on his shoulders? What if he takes the wrong decision? What if they all die because of him?

“Ah.”

Mark doesn’t realize how tightly he’s holding Donghyuck’s hand until the boy groans softly. Only when Mark lets him go, Donghyuck opens his eyes again and props himself up with some effort. Even through the haze of the fever, he still manages to look at Mark like he can pierce through his mind in the same easy, practiced way he always pierces through his heart.

What would Donghyuck do? He was raised to be a king, unlike Mark. Oh, Donghyuck would have the right answer, not the rightful one but the right one, Mark is sure of it. But Donghyuck is hurt and sick and barely there, he’s vulnerable and helpless and he called for Mark, he called for his mate through the bond - Donghyuck, who never asks for help, who never needs any help, Donghyuck who once showed Mark his most vulnerable side and Mark crushed it because he couldn’t sit down and think clearly, because he was jealous and insecure and petty, because he just wasn’t enough. Donghyuck still called for him, and now he’s looking at Mark so intensely that Mark doesn’t know if this is a cry for help or a challenge, (and who but Donghyuck could be both the princess to save and the dragon guarding the castle?)

 _What are you looking for?_ Mark thinks, as he evades Donghyuck's gaze. Bitterness spread in his chest because didn't he promise many times that he would be better? That he would show Donghyuck he's worthy of him? _Don't look, not now when I'm as scared as one could be._

But Donghyuck looks, Donghyuck sees right through him and his expression darkens.

“Help me up,” he asks, as he extends a hand for Mark to take - a request for help or a challenge? Mark doesn't know, but when their fingers touch something sears between them, an invisible brand that scalds the skin but leaves no burn. And that’s how Mark realizes that it wasn’t a cry for help, nor a challenge. It was a trap. He pulls his hand back but the heat doesn’t dispel at the lack of contact. It keeps burning his hand like he's been branded. In a way, he has. His eyes narrow as he looks back to his stupid, stupid mate, who’s holding onto the wall to keep himself up and looking quite satisfied with himself.

“Right now?” he whispers furiously, anxiety and fear momentarily replaced by a fury as scalding hot as the bond burning his hand. “We’re in the middle of the fucking nowhere, you’re on the verge of death and _now_ you decide to question our relationship?”

“You were taking too long,” Donghyuck hisses back. “If this goes on, we’re going to be buried in snow before you even take a fucking decision.”

“A Trial of the Bond, Donghyuck? Really?”

Mark hears someone - maybe Hendery, maybe Woobin, maybe both - draw in a sharp breath, but he doesn’t care. He glares at Donghyuck and Donghyuck - the Goddess help him, he can barely stand on his own - manages to glare back.

“Yes, whatever it is. If it’s the only thing that will make you snap out of whatever self-pitying show that is going on in your dumb head, well, you can be damn sure I will do it. I’m doing it.”

Mark looks up at the dark ceiling of the cave, trying to withstand the instinct to tug on Donghyuck’s collar and shake him until all the lunacy that seems to have possessed him leaves his body. Of course he’s doing it, he’s already done it. The tingling feeling in Mark’s hand proves that the trial has already started. Now, of all times, a fucking Trial of the Bond - and who even told Donghyuck how to do one of these things? He knows nothing about being an Omega for months and suddenly he decides to pull out an ancient mating ritual in the middle of a natural disaster?

“Do you have any idea how dangerous, how utterly stupid, how inconsiderate what you just did is?” he asks, and he doesn’t care if everyone in the stupid cave is staring at them, he only cares about Donghyuck, who could have just stayed put and played dead instead of complicating everything further. This is it, this is the ugly fight his gut instinct wanted to warn him about, and Mark is ready to embrace it with everything he has.

“No,” he continues, as bitterly as he can, “you have no idea. You just have to go and do the first thing that comes to your mind, don’t you? You jump in front of bears and get yourself hurt, you call me, all the way up to this mountain, to come here and pick you up and now, _now_ at all times you decide to spring something like this on me? Are you fucking happy with yourself, Donghyuck? Do you finally feel satisfied?”

“Your Highness, please calm down,” Hongwon asks, but Mark notices him taking a step back, just like everyone else in the cave, and wonders how much rage he’s actually leaking in the air to make all those Alphas and Betas cower in front of him. The only one who’s standing there, wavering from fatigue and a wounded leg, but not cowering - never cowering - is Donghyuck.

“Master Yang,” Donghyuck calls, with a feeble voice, and Hongwon perks up.

“Yes, Your Grace?”

“Take everyone outside. We have to leave soon.”

Hongwon looks at Mark, who nods angrily. Everyone quietly leaves the cave, leaving only Mark and Donghyuck inside.

“Then what is it that you want from me?” Mark asks. “Since you're so eager to get rid of me that you started something like this, at least tell me how we’ll finish it.”

Usually when an Omega wants to see if an Alpha is worthy of being their mate they ask him to hunt a wolf, maybe a fucking bear if they want to be pretentious, - well, Donghyuck already did the killing the bear part on his own, and without having to ask his Alpha - and the Alpha must comply if he wants to proceed to the marriage. But the Trial of the Bond is usually practiced in symbolic form, as an engagement ceremony, to grant good luck to the future couple. No one ever does it for real, it’s been banished for decades. No one except Donghyuck, apparently.

Mark tries to swallow down his anger. Whatever his mate asks him now, if Mark won’t be able to satisfy his request and pass the trial, their bond will break so severely they will not be able to form another one ever again. They will still be married, but they won’t be mates anymore, just strangers sharing a bed. But isn’t that what they’ve been all this time? He wonders for how long Donghyuck has known of this practice, and why did he wait until this moment to unleash his revenge on Mark.

Donghyuck wobbles, steading himself up against the wall. He glares at Mark tiredly.

“Can you even hear yourself talking? You're behaving like a scared child! Whatever is going on in your head, you have to snap out of it. These people are depending on you, they’re trusting you to get them out of here safely. You’re their prince, Mark, how can anyone trust you to rule over something as big as a country if you can’t even lead a couple of village kids out of these caves?”

He sways, for a moment, and when Mark tries to steady him up - out of instinct more than kindness - Donghyuck slaps his hand away. He raises his chin and looks at Mark, and even now, dirty and sweaty and sick and pale and angry, he looks every little bit the king he could’ve become.

“You promised me so many things, but I’m tired of promises. Prove that you can do it. Prove me that you can save these people, your people. Prove me that you can be smart and brave and wise, Mark of the Vale of the Giants, because I fucking deserve a mate who is and I won’t settle for anything less. Prove me that you’re strong enough to be a king and I’ll let you be my king and my Alpha,” he says. “That is my condition.”

The bond shakes as Donghyuck’s words settle around them like dust after an explosion, finalizing the terms of the trial. And Mark doesn’t know if he wants to laugh or to cry because what kind of condition is this? How is this something Mark can ever hope to achieve in this lifetime? Since Donghyuck didn't give him any clear goal to work for the Trial of the Bond will probably last until they die. But an entire lifetime of proving himself worthy of his mate... isn't such a bad condition for a second chance. It's not like Mark wasn't already willing to prove himself worthy to Donghyuck, to gain his forgiveness, no matter what it takes - even if it takes a lifetime. And, all things considered, this request oddly fits Donghyuck, who hates the idea of being defeated and conquered and owned, like spoils of a lost war. Instead of a war that can be lost, their relationship can be a peace that must be earned, a peace Mark will have to defend for the rest of his life. Still, Mark finds himself shaking his head in disbelief. What a fucking high maintenance Omega he has found.

The hot flare in his hand dies down, leaving behind a soft tingling.

“You really had to do this now, didn’t you?” he asks, and this time there's no rage in his voice. “Couldn’t you have waited any other moment?”

Donghyuck sighs. “I could have not done it at all, to be honest, but it was the only way to calm you down.”

“An ancient rite that will most likely destroy our bond? Couldn’t you just have used words?”

“You were pretty much into your head. Besides, it's not like I gave you such unrealistic conditions.” Mark refrains from answering because it would just be him cursing at his mate. Said mate closes his eyes again, lets out a sigh. “You know what you need to do now, don’t you?”

Annoying, he’s so annoying. And right. It did work, Mark feels a lot calmer now. The bond simmers with the last remnants of Donghyuck’s words, grounding him down, letting him think clearly.  Donghyuck wouldn't have risked their bond like this if he hadn't been sure Mark could save these people. So that's what he will do first. He will have a lot of time to scold Donghyuck about doing something this unnecessarily dangerous later, when they're safe. Oh, and he _will_ scold him.

“Is that everything you ever wanted from me, Donghyuck?” he asks. “Nothing else you want to add before we go? This is a once in a lifetime chance.”

Donghyuck’s eyes sharpen for a moment as he leans even closer.

“I know it would solve most of your problems but don’t you dare let me die here,” he murmurs, right before his legs give up.

 _Dear Goddess,_ Mark thinks, as he catches Donghyuck in his arms without complaints this time, _help me save this man. I could look across the world until the end of time and not find another one as lovely as him._

“Stay assured, sunshine. I have no intention of letting you go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> donghyuck: what is the quickest way to tell mark to start acting like a prince uhm words or threatening him with an ancient mating custom that could break our bond forever? i could use words but would he really listen? but more importantly would it be dramatic enough for my fic persona? 
> 
> quick explanation: the trial of the bond is an old vale custom that an omega can use to make their alpha prove their worth. the omega sets the condition of the trial and the alpha must pass it to prove that they're worthy to take care of their omega. it's usually done before the mating as an engagement ceremony, so if the alpha fails there won't be any lasting effects like you know breaking the bond forever (although it's bad luck to get married if the trial of the bond hasn't been passed), and it's usually, like mark said, hunting a beast or defeating someone's father/brother in combat, but it's more a pro forma thing than a real battle. but when it's done for real between two mates not passing it can have serious consequences, so it's considered a forbidden practice. this is all i can say right now, but mark and donghyuck will talk in more details about the consequences of donghyuck setting such unrealistic conditions for mark's trial during the next chapter, when donghyuck is not, you know, collapsing from a fever.
> 
> also, since i talked about it with one of my beta readers and there was a lot of confusion about the scene of mark finding the cave under the snow, [this is the visual representation of what happened](https://i.imgur.com/JjBnFbY.png) (remember you are not allowed to make fun of my artistic skills ever c: )


	30. xxx. how much love can you draw from the wound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm going through the comments, very slowly, and I see some mixed reactions and a lot of questions. I want to clarify that, as usual, the lack of Donghyuck's pov makes it very difficult to understand what's going on in his side of the deal, but thankfully, we're at a point of the plot in which questions are being asked and answers are being given a lot more easily compared to the first chapters. Unfortunately, like Professor Oak would say, "There's a time and place for everything but not now!" because this chapter also got longer than I thought and since it's quite a dialogue-heavy chapter not all the things that should've been discussed were in fact discussed in this chapter. Some things will be dealt with in the next chapters.  
> I want to thank you all again for worrying about me so much and wishing me well. I say it in every author's notes' box so you all know that it's not a good time for me right now, but I'm doing my best. I hope I can give back at least a bit of the support you're giving me, so please enjoy the chapter <3<3<3  
> There are some spoiler warnings after this so if you don't want to read them just skip to the chapter.  
> -  
> -  
> -  
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> \- warnings: this chapter is /rated/ ahah you didn't thought i would pull this card and yet i did, i would also warn for... how is it called... it's been so long since i used it... fluff? plus, as always, unbetaed  
> \- [chapter title source](https://avolitorial.tumblr.com/post/189424948082/asw-transcription-belowmore-invisible) (most of the chapter titles come from the online works of an independent poet, they're absolutely amazing so please support them if you can)  
> \- Songs for this chapter are Talk Me Down by Troye Sivan, The Other Side by Ruelle (The Brick Slayer Remix) and Arms Unfolding by dodie ([playlist](https://twitter.com/aprilclaws/status/1156324062047670272))  
> \- Free promo for [Prince Jaemin](https://twitter.com/Kwonstellation9/status/1228708761868500997) by @Kwonstellation9 <3<3
> 
> #

The fire is singing a song to the storm when Donghyuck wakes up.

Mark sees it happen - he’s been waiting for it, for two long, exhausting days, not daring to let go until he was sure Donghyuck was out of danger. Donghyuck’s bottom lip trembles and his brow furrows, half-hidden against the bundle of furs Mark has made for him to use as a pillow, and he lets out a shorter breath, and in a moment he’s pushing himself up and looking for his sword out of survival instinct only. But there’s no sword next to him, and he doesn’t even make it to a sitting position. He groans from the pain in his leg and falls back. Mark is at his side in a moment, pulling him up and letting him lean on his chest to prop himself up.

“Hey, calm now, easy. Easy.”

Donghyuck blinks. The unfamiliar ceiling is reflected in his eyes, barely lit up from the fire.

“Where are we?” he asks, voice raspy to the point it must be painful to talk, and Mark shushes him.

“Drink,” he murmurs.

Donghyuck, for once, does as he’s told. He lets Mark pull a flask to his mouth and drinks the lukewarm water inside until the last drop, licking his lips when he’s done.

“More,” he begs, and Mark complies, holds his head as he gulps, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down until he’s satisfied.

“How do you feel?” Mark asks.

“Like shit. Everything hurts.” Donghyuck scratches at his neck and his eyes widen when his nails catch the hem of his undergarments. “Where are my clothes?”

He cranes his neck back to look at Mark, but Mark is staring at the fire and refusing to blush.

“They were wet,” he says. “I washed them but they should be dry by now. Do you want them?”

He sees Donghyuck wince and squeeze his eyes shut in embarrassment.

“How long has it been?” He looks around again, an uneasy expression on his face. “Where are we? Where’s the others? You didn’t strip me in front of the others, right?”

It’s cute that he’s worrying about that when Mark spent days agonizing over his survival. Somehow, it makes everything feel trivial, almost like he didn’t spend two days burning like a small red star in Mark’s arms.

“I did, but then I had to kill all of them because they saw too much.”

Donghyuck makes a strange choked noise and tries to hit Mark’s leg, but he doesn’t have enough strength to put in the blow and his hand simply falls tiredly on Mark’s thigh.

“Don’t do that,” Mark warns him. “Your body is still too weak.”

“Then don’t joke.”

He looks annoyed, so Mark runs his hand through his hair, carefully combing the unruly strands. It’s matted and lacking its usual luster, but under the light of the fire it still shines a pretty coppery hue. Donghyuck’s lashes fall shut for a moment under Mark’s touch. He sighs.

“You were out for two days, going in and out of a fever,” Mark explains, as his fingers move lower, rubbing at Donghyuck’s nape until all the tension bleeds out of him leaving him boneless and pliant, plastered against Mark’s side.

“Were you worried?” Donghyuck asks, softly.

“Was I supposed to be? You’re too strong to be taken out by a fever.”

Donghyuck chuckles at that. “Liar. You were worried.”

Mark doesn’t tell him he spent the last two days awake, guarding over his unconscious body like a hawk. He did undress Donghyuck and he made sure to lower his temperature by running a wet rag on his face and chest every few hours. He fed him water whenever he was lucid enough to drink. He held him close and told him stories because, in his delirium, Donghyuck would get upset without him, only calming down at the sound of his voice. The bond would tingle every time Mark had to leave the cabin, calling him back to Donghyuck’s side as soon as possible.

“Come, let’s get you something to eat.”

There’s food in the cabin, nuts and cereals and that dry, flatbread that the hunters take up with them in the mountain, and honey and jam, things Johnny must have brought from his own home. Mark will have to thank him, and then apologize with his head on the ground for breaking into his cabin and eating his food. It’s still snowing too hard to hunt. Mark tried to leave the cabin, but the animals must still be hiding from the storm in their nests.

He feeds Donghyuck bread and honey, and walnuts, urging him to eat a little more before he falls asleep again. Donghyuck eats, but looks around suspiciously, trying to get a better view of his surroundings. Before he can ask any inopportune questions - Mark really can’t afford to upset him now, not when he should be resting instead of fighting with Mark - he decides to change the topic.

“Since you asked about the others… Right now they should have reached Saira.”

“You let them go alone?”

“Hendery and Hongwon are with them. And Woobin too. They’ll be fine.”

Donghyuck hums. “What is this place?” He tries to get up again to look at the cabin, but Mark pushes him down. The later Donghyuck realizes where they really are, the later he’ll get angry at Mark.

“Ahah, only healthy people can get up. Suits you for getting yourself too sick to even stand.”

Donghyuck pouts, but he can’t even keep himself up without Mark supporting him, so he just sighs and lies down like Mark wants him to.

“We’re in the Clairs,” Mark tells him in the end. Not the complete truth, but not a lie either.  
“My cousin showed me this cabin during a hunting trip a few years ago. I guessed there would be food and enough wood to lit up a fire. Also, it was quite close to those caves, so I ended up bringing you here instead of trying our luck with the others.”

“And Hendery let you go? Didn’t he bitch at you?”

Mark lets out a disapproving sound at the crude language and Donghyuck laughs weakly at him.

“Did you go all Alpha on him to force him to listen? A pity I wasn’t awake for that.”

“A pity indeed.”

Mark leans down, the hand gently combing Donghyuck’s hair falls to his face. He’s still so warm. Mark makes a displeased sound deep in his throat and Donghyuck opens his eyes again.

“That bad?”

He tries to say it in a light tone but every word is gasped, so warm, sickly warm.

Mark resists the urge to kiss his knuckles and gets up. In front of the fire, inside a wooden bucket, the snow he brought from outside has half-melted into a puddle of lukewarm water. He soaks a cloth in it and comes back to Donghyuck’s side, propping his head on his thigh.

“Close your eyes,” he says, before he runs the wet cloth on Donghyuck’s forehead, eliciting a silent hiss out of him. The water was not icy cold, but still it must feel cool against Donghyuck’s overheated skin. Mark slowly drags the cloth on Donghyuck’s cheeks, the line of his jaws, down his neck and to his chest, pulling on the hem of the undergarments so he can reach down to his bellybutton and then up again. Donghyuck shivers when the cloth brushes against his nipples. He buckles up against Mark’s hand and lets out a low, throaty sound that reminds Mark of a purr.

“Feels nice?”

Donghyuck nods, his eyes still closed, unconsciously curling his fingers against the furs as Mark drags the wet cloth over his collarbones one last time. He only mumbles in displeasure when Mark fastens his undergarments and tucks the pelts around his chest again.

He looks too soft like this, too harmless. Mark can count the times he’s seen Donghyuck looking this relaxed, like he’s at peace, on his fingertips. The first night they had sex, when he fell asleep in Mark’s arms, a little bruised, a little shy. The morning before Mark left for the Clairs, pale and pink light kissing his brow, hair an unkempt mess. The first nights of his heat, sweet and heady and hard, letting go after fighting against his own nerves, letting Mark fuck him through it. He knows Donghyuck would like to be always strong, always biting, but he’s human too. And human lives are so fragile. No matter how brave and golden and strong Donghyuck is, even if he jumps right in front of danger like nothing can hurt him he’s still human. He gets hurt, he gets sick. He needs someone to take care of him.

 _Don’t you dare let me die,_ Donghyuck said. As if Mark would ever.

He lets out a deep breath and gets up, wanting to put the damp cloth back in the bucket, but Donghyuck jumps, startled awake by the movement. His arm slips out from the cocoon of pelts Mark has wrapped him into and slaps against Mark’s leg lazily. When Mark catches his forearm and tries to tuck it back in, he curls his fingers around Mark’s ankle, clawing at his pants to stop him from leaving.

“What is it?” Mark asks.

“Stay.”

“I’ll be back in a moment. I’m just going to put this away and get you more water, in case you get thirsty again. You should drink more if you want to recover.”

Donghyuck shakes his head. “I’m going to fall asleep again. Stay until then.”

Like a spoiled child, he tugs on Mark’s clothes. Mark sighs and kneels down next to him again. “Aren’t you being a sweet little mistress today? Pouting and calling for me. Keep it on and I’ll think you don’t actually dislike me too much.”

Donghyuck frowns with his eyes closed.

“Who likes you? It’s cold and there’s no one else here. So, for a while, just stay here.”

He pulls Mark under the pelts, and Mark only stops shed his clothes as well. The rugs he has pulled out from the chest in the corner do nothing to mitigate the harshness of the wood under them. And yet Donghyuck is soft and warm from the fever, although noticeably less than before, a lot less than yesterday, and he pulls Mark close, only letting out a sigh when he’s wrapped against Mark’s chest.

“You didn’t sleep at all while you were looking over me, did you?”

Mark lets out a soft hum.

“What an idiot. Do you want to fall sick as well? Who will take care of me then?”

 _I will,_ Mark wants to say, and maybe he does, maybe he just dreams of it. It doesn’t matter. Donghyuck seems to finally be out of danger. Mark can close his eyes, tighten his arms around his mate’s body, and finally fall asleep.

 

❃

 

“-ark… Mark!”

Mark whines and sniffles. He tries to hide under his pillow but fails, for some reason. His legs are so heavy they feel like they are chained to the bed.

“Minhyung! Mark! Where the hell did you bring me?”

Mark’s eyes shoot open. Well, fuck.

There’s no bed, no pillow, no dream. Donghyuck is sitting up, right on Mark’s leg thighs, frowning at the cabin angrily. He looks back at Mark, finds him awake and manages, if possible, to look even angrier, but in a cute, disheveled way. A small, angry quail. Mark almost smiles. Then Donghyuck hits him in the chest.

“Where are we?”

“Johnny’s cabin.”

“Why does it smell like sex all over?”

Oh, he did notice in the end. He must have been too exhausted to smell anything the last time he woke up. Mark sighs.

“You see, Donghyuck, when two people like each other…”

Donghyuck tries to hit him again, but this time Mark manages to catch his fist. It’s not that it hurts - Donghyuck is too weak to deal any real damage - but it’s really annoying.

“Stop joking around, we shouldn’t be here! Didn’t you say this was your cousin’s cabin? Why does it smell like an Omega nested in here for months?”

“Because an Omega nested in here for months? Wait, don’t hit me again. I didn’t know what my cousin was using this cabin for, alright? I just needed a place to stay and this was the closest place I knew of. You were dying.” Donghyuck’s eyebrow twitches at that, and Mark holds his fist a little tighter just in case Donghyuck decides to explode on him. “You were dying, Donghyuck. You passed out while we were still in the caves, you were so warm I thought you were going to catch fire in front of me like a demon in a graveyard. I really didn’t know my cousin and his Omega were using this place as… their love nest, I didn’t even know my cousin had an Omega until a few weeks ago. But then we were here, and the storm had worsened, and you still needed a place to stay. So we stayed.”

Donghyuck frowns. He finally stops struggling against Mark’s hold and Mark lets his hand go.

“Is this why we’re not sleeping on the bed?” he asks, massaging his wrist.

Mark bites his lip with a grimace. “You have no idea how bad that bed smells. I couldn’t even get close to it. I would’ve set this whole house on fire rather than letting you touch that bed.”

“Well, judging from the scent, they did it on every possible surface. I can’t believe you spent two days in here without going crazy.”

Mark doesn’t elaborate. It was hard for him. In many ways. Trespassing in a nest is not only extremely impolite, bordering on indecent, but he can smell both his cousins having sex all around him, which is awkward and inappropriate and still manages to make him shamefully bothered.

“Why would they even come here?” Donghyuck asks. “Who wants to spend their rut or heat in a cabin in the middle of nowhere? Don’t they have a home?”

“It’s… complicated.” Johnny kind of asked him to keep the secret, but after blowing up on Donghyuck for having too many secrets with him Mark can’t really deny him the truth. Besides, if there’s someone who won’t tell the king, that’s Donghyuck. “Come down and I’ll tell you? It’s cold.”

Donghyuck finally realizes he’s wearing nothing but a flimsy silk slip and lowers himself on Mark’s chest again, pulling the furs to his shoulders to cover them both. Mark sighs in relief when they’re cocooned together, but it quickly turns into dread when he realizes Donghyuck is shamelessly, insistently hard against his thigh.

He looks up, to the unfamiliar ceiling of someone else’s sex cabin, and wonders how slowly both of his favorite cousins will kill him if he ends up fucking his husband in their cabin. Probably very slowly. It doesn’t help that he himself has been half-hard for days and that the same mate who refused to touch him for weeks is now twitching angrily in his lap.

“You know we can’t, don’t you?” he whispers, and he can hear Donghyuck gritting his teeth, hiding his face in the crook of Mark’s neck while he tries not to rut down. He must feel it, that Mark too is hard.

“I know, I fucking know. I don’t even want to… It’s not my fault there are pheromones everywhere and I want to ride you into this stupid floor.”

For a moment, Mark thinks being skinned alive by Johnny and Taeyong doesn’t sound too bad if he gets to have this. It would be easy, he could simply revert their position and jerk down against Donghyuck’s leg. It’s been so long that even this, rutting down like a teenager, would get him off easily. Somehow, Donghyuck reads his thoughts and pinches him in the side. Hard.

“We’re not doing that. It’s already rude that we’re here, we’re not having sex in your cousin’s fucking nest.”

“Then stop doing that,” Mark begs - moans - when Donghyuck moves slightly against him.

“I’m trying! I’m just angry that I want to have sex, with you, while I’m still upset. I don’t want to do anything with you!”

Liar, Mark thinks. A little hypocritical liar. Mark can feel him ooze against his leg.

Donghyuck takes a deep breath.

“Let’s just talk about something else, alright? Tell me about your cousin who owns a sex cabin in the woods.”

“Which one of them?” Mark lets himself slip out, and Donghyuck shrieks in outrage and shifts back, moaning when his cock drag against Mark’s skin. Outside, the sky is finally starting to clear.

 

❃

 

There isn’t much to do in the cabin, so they talk, all hushed tones and the crackling of the fire in the background. Mark tells Donghyuck about Johnny, whom Donghyuck faintly remembers from that archery competition in the Coraline, when Donghyuck won first place and then challenged Mark for the hand of his sister. He tells Donghyuck about Taeyong, whom Donghyuck has never met but always heard so much about.

(Taeyong, who was raised to be a knight, who was smart and quick with a sword - Taeyong, who struggled and struggled and struggled with his mother’s expectations, Taeyong who was never enough and was too much at the same time. He was the next in line for Crown Prince if both Sungmin and Mark had failed to present as Alphas, except in the end it was he who presented as an Omega. And, for years, Taeyong was the most precious Omega of the Vale - at least before Donghyuck waltzed in, smelling of honey and wildflowers.)

“Why aren’t they married yet? They’re twenty-three years old. They could already have a family.”

“Marriages between the main families need to be sanctioned by the Royal House,” Mark explains. “Taeyong is the son of the most powerful lord of the Vale and his mother is the sister of the king. Even if he cannot compete for the title of Crown Prince, an eventual Alpha son of his could, especially if the father came from another powerful family. My father has been pressing the Princess of Saira, his sister, to make him join a temple. Except Aunt just laughed in his face and they’re currently not on talking terms.”

Donghyuck hums. “Your family kind of sucks. What about Johnny?”

“Well, since he’s the only son of the lord of Gyr, refusing to let him get married is out of the question. But Father was hoping Johnny would find a Southern spouse, the last daughter of a man with too many daughters maybe, with little dowry and even less political influence.”

“And he chose to court Taeyong instead. Your cousins really like to dance with danger.”

Mark sighs. “I don’t know what happened. They used to really hate each other when they were younger, but then Taeyong presented and… well, apparently it was impossible for Johnny to resist him.”

Donghyuck’s body, next to him, goes tense for a moment.

“What is it?” Mark asks.

“Nothing. It’s just… it really comes down to that. He presented and suddenly they fell in love. Would he have liked him as much if he hadn’t presented as an Omega?”

Mark is quiet for a moment. The cabin around them doesn’t only smells of sex, but also of intimacy, of quiet laughter and tender hands. It speaks of love in a way that makes Mark feel ashamed to be here.

“Who am I to tell? I’m quite close with both of them and yet I knew nothing about this until I visited them last fall. But, from what I can see, Johnny really loves him. He could have married anyone else, he could still do it, but he refuses to. It’s Taeyong of Saira or nothing, and the king chose nothing for him. And now my father is at odds with two of his most powerful vassals.”

“And you’re right in the middle,” Donghyuck concludes.

“Where I’ve always been.”

Donghyuck hums and rolls over, giving Mark his back as he curls on his side. He pretends to be fine, even yawns and stretches a little, but the bond still churns uncomfortably between them, barely enough for Mark to notice if he wasn’t paying attention. But he is paying attention, because with Donghyuck you need to care about the details, the little things he lets slip out when he thinks Mark is too distracted to notice.

“You’re still thinking about Taeyong, aren’t you?” he asks, and Donghyuck shrugs.

“He was a little like me, you know? I wonder how he felt about it,” Donghyuck murmurs. “Presenting, I mean.”

Mark can’t see his face, but he sounds like he’s frowning, that little pout he does when he doesn’t understand something.

“Taeyong… he could do anything quite well. He could fight, he was a good politician, he was the perfect Alpha son his mother could have ever wanted. And with Sungmin presenting as a Beta, my father was very much worried about him. But, Taeyong, he always looked…” Weary, like he was carrying a weight too heavy for him. Sometimes he would lie down on the grass of the queen’s garden with Mark, hiding from the rest of the world, and not say anything for hours. _I’m recharging,_ he would tell Mark.

“I know he didn’t want to be Crown Prince. I know he didn’t like the court in Dawyd and I know he didn’t like fighting.” He definitely didn’t like fighting with Johnny, although they did fight, quite often, as the sons of two neighboring lords who didn’t really like each other, and Taeyong could best Johnny when he wanted. “When he presented as an Omega he looked mostly… relieved. Like he could finally be himself, you know?”

Donghyuck doesn’t answer, not even when Mark softly calls his name. If not for the light sense of uneasiness tensing the bond, it would be easy to think he has already fallen asleep.

 

❃

 

The fire has almost died down when Mark comes back from the woods that night.

“There wasn’t much around,” he announces, raising the couple of partridges he’s holding by the claws, “but I got us some birds.”

Donghyuck helps clean them, snickering when Mark clearly doesn’t know where to put his hands. He’s limping still but he can hold himself up enough to walk around the kitchen and help Mark with the food. He tells Mark they used to go camping in Starpath, one of the last islands of the archipelago, Donghyuck, Jeno, and… “And the lord of that island. We were friends.”

Mark blinks, taking a moment to remember who the lord of that island was. When he does, he stays quiet. He doesn’t want to ask about Yangyang, not when Donghyuck makes that bitter, sad face whenever his former fiance is mentioned. He just urges Donghyuck to eat a little more, throws one more log into the fire, checks Donghyuck’s temperature with a hand on his forehead.

“How do you feel?” he asks.

“A little better.”

“Good.” He pushes Donghyuck down again, slipping under the furs with him. “Your fever has gone down and the storm is over. Tomorrow morning we’ll leave.”

Donghyuck hums a soft approval before turning back again. His breaths are steady, his body is warm, unnecessarily close, lulling Mark to sleep. Mark is already threading in that borderless space between wakefulness and dream when Donghyuck talks.

“Thank you. For taking care of me. You saved my life.”

Mark blinks, too drowsy and surprised to answer, but before he can line up a few words Donghyuck is already going on, every word steady, deliberate.

“I’m sorry, you know? For what happened in the cave. Jisung would’ve died without me, but I guess it was unfair to put you through that, feeling my pain through the bond. And I’m sorry for complaining about this place. I would be dead without you…”

“You don’t need to thank me, Donghyuck. It was my…”

 _Duty_ , Mark almost replies, but he stops himself in time. Some words cannot really be said easily around Donghyuck. Donghyuck can guess, though, because he laughs without any real amusement.

“I know you’re only doing it because we’re mated and it’s your duty, but you still saved me and…”

Mark reaches out, blindly. His fingers get caught on the hem of Donghyuck’s chemise until they’re curling around his waist. Donghyuck tries to struggle but there’s no space, they’re too tightly entangled in the furs for him to escape the way Mark’s arms wrap around his chest, Mark’s lips soft against the fabric covering his shoulder.

“I know you don’t like when I say it,” Mark whispers, “but you keep doubting me and my intentions. I like you, Donghyuck. I am, in fact, quite fond of you, that when that storm started they had to stop me, or I would’ve tried to climb the mountain on my own, snow, wind and the wrath of the gods withstanding, just to make sure you were alright. I came to save you and I put other people in danger and you know what I was thinking? That I wouldn’t know what to do if something had happened to you. What more do I have to do for you to think I genuinely, honestly care about you?”

“It’s not that I don’t believe you,” Donghyuck whispers, and his hand covers Mark’s hand resting on his chest as he lowers his voice, almost as if he was retelling a secret, “it’s just that I don’t understand.”

“Then I’ll explain.”

“What do you even see in me? You hated me when we were younger, you hated me to the point that you would deny me any scrap of friendship even when I came to beg for it.”

“In my defense, you were an asshole to me.”

“I was an asshole to you after we got married too!”

Mark bites his tongue. That, he was.

“In the end,” Donghyuck continues, “it all boils down to this. I presented as an Omega and you suddenly found me desirable, but doesn’t it mean you only like me for being an Omega?”

He unconsciously claws at Mark’s hands resting on his hip and Mark decides this is not a conversation he can have with Donghyuck’s back, some things are better said to his face only. He pushes until Donghyuck is laying down, on his back, Mark straddling him.

“Is this what yesterday was about?” he asks, to Donghyuck’s reluctant face. “It’s quite unfair, of you, to think Johnny fell in love with Taeyong just because he was an Omega. It’s quite unfair of you to think I would like you just because of that too.”

“Then what do you see in me? If you don’t even like me for being an Omega, doesn’t that mean that you don’t like me at all? Because I’m not your cousin, Mark. I wasn’t waiting for a chance to present and escape my Alpha life, I must tell you I quite loved my life! And I hate being an Omega. I hate the heats. I hate the way people look at me, either pitiful or disgustingly lewd, like I’m nothing but a piece of meat wrapped in a pretty ribbon. I hate that everyone suddenly thinks I’m made of glass. I hate the presumption that I should embrace this condition and just be content staying one step behind whatever dumb Alpha is in the same room as me, I hate doing that. I don’t really want to do that!”

Mark shakes him, just a little.

“Do you want to listen to me?” he asks, letting go when Donghyuck finally stops ranting to look up at him, in his eyes both murder and a challenge. (Mark has never wanted to kiss him more.)

“I like when you break the rules,” he says, in one single exhale, and he sees Donghyuck’s eyes widening. “I like you always, but I like you best at dawn, with a sword in your hands. I like you when you sing, I like you when you practice archery. I like you when you’re tired and you fall asleep in front of the fire while telling me about your home. I like you when you’re being smart, you have no idea how sexy you are when you’re being smart, and bold, and impudent, I want nothing more than shut you up with a kiss. I like you when you joke with me because you never joked with me, back when we were children. You were always beating me and berating me and humiliating me in front of my father and, yes, Donghyuck, I didn’t like you, not at all, but the parts of you that I like the most now are the parts of you I was the most jealous of, back when we were children.”

Donghyuck has long stopped struggling. His face is blooming crimson, the flush disappearing under the hem of the chemise to warm up his chest, and he’s breathing hard, his body heaving up and down. This time, he doesn’t protest when Mark tangles their fingers with one. He lays the other one on Donghyuck’s chest, right over his heart, and feels it quiver under the skin, a songbird in a ribcage of bones and untold words.

“You’re not a perfect Omega,” he continues, even if he’s rambling, because Donghyuck looks too paralyzed by his own surprise to argue. “You talk back, you fight back, you don’t care. And you look so pretty all wrapped up in your silk clothes, in our stone palace, waiting for me to come back home, but I have no use for a mate that waits for me at home. I want you here, next to me. I want… I want the warrior and the politician and the crazy boy who would challenge me in front of his whole country just to prove a point. I want the golden prince of the Southern Islands, because I’m going to be king and a strong king deserves a strong mate, and you’re the strongest person I know, and I want you.”

Donghyuck seems to shake awake at that. He lets out a quiet sob and turns his face to the side, closing his eyes so he doesn’t have to look at Mark, but Mark can’t have that, not now, not now that he’s bare. Donghyuck needs to see, even if he’s afraid.

“Look at me,” he commands, and there’s no power in his words other than his despair to be seen, to be understood, to be believed and trusted and loved back - but Donghyuck must already know by now, that there’s nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. No matter how scared he is, no matter how much Mark scares him. There is no power in Mark’s words because Mark has already made that mistake once and he swore to himself he would never force Donghyuck to do anything again. This time Donghyuck obeys just because he wants to.

“I really want you, Donghyuck, even if it makes little sense, and I want to get to know you better and I want to-”

A loud bang halts Mark’s speech. The whole cabin seems to shake, one, two, three times. Mark freezes and looks up towards the entrance of the cabin as one voice comes, a little choked, from outside..

“Open this door or, I swear to the ancient gods, I will burn the whole hut with you in it!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> someone is: definitely pissed off.
> 
> next chapter: again, talking, a lot of snow, donghyuck takes mark's side for once


	31. xxxi. we stretch our wings, grey feathers and curved beaks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mmmh there's not much going on in this chapter. Some chapters are bound to be just chill conversations so that we all can understand things better. I really wanted to focus a little more on this relationship and what Mark feels about it and how other people also perceive it before we dive back into plot-filled action again.  
> I'm sorry for being so behind with the comments. I'm still going through a lot and trying to stay away from my laptop during the day and mostly focusing on writing at night, so I have neglected replies. However, I always read all of your comments as soon as they're posted, and I'll try to catch up. Thank you for the support, for the theories and everything. Lots Of Love <3
> 
> \- Songs for this chapter are Talk Me Down by Troye Sivan, I Can't Make You Love Me by Dave Thomas Junior and Winter by Daughter ([playlist](https://twitter.com/aprilclaws/status/1156324062047670272))  
> 

The clouds open like black curtains revealing the glowing, the most beloved stage of the gods. Blue skies, white peaks, the fortified city of Gyr looks unreal, houses of biscuits stuck over white sugar snow. Donghyuck stirs against Mark’s chest, feeling the sun on his face for the first time in weeks. He looks up, and the breath is caught in his throat.

“It’s…”

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Mark whispers in his ear, and he’s not talking about the view.

“Not bad at all,” Donghyuck replies, a little breathless. His eyes must hurt by how wide they are, open as much as he can to catch all this white. It’s a lot to take in, but that’s how the Clairs are. Endless space, superhuman silences, and this deep sense of peace. Down, deep below, the Vale is a mystery draped in nightmares of black clouds, snowy clouds, oppressing the world under their weight. Only the Clairs look up, crowned in sunshine, beautiful.

Mark almost smiles and the horse he and Donghyuck are riding huffs, probably annoyed at their lack of attention. Hearing that, Johnny turns to glare at Mark.

“Watch where you’re going,” he says, in the most unkind tone he can muster, and Mark lets out a disapproving noise. The horse, one of the biggest animals Mark has ever seen, huffs again. It’s a white horse of the mountains, the only mount able to bring a rider through the thick blizzards of the Clairs, and it would never let Mark or Donghyuck fall. Johnny is just being understandably petty. Mark sighs. It was to be expected, but Johnny has never been anything but friendly to Mark, and it stings.

“I am, don’t worry.”

“Oh, I don’t worry about you. You could easily go and throw yourself back to the Vale, cousin. But I’m afraid your husband is in dire need of medical treatment right now, and that’s the only reason you’re allowed to ride back with us.”

Mark snorts. For all his words, Johnny is not allowed to hurt him. There’s, of course, the law of the Vale, but there’s also the law of the blood.

“You can’t be upset at me forever,” he says, as he tightens his knees around the horse to make it trot a little faster until he’s side by side with Johnny. His cousin glares.

“Well, I can certainly be upset for as long as it pleases me. I have every right to.”

“It was an emergency,” Mark says, for what seems to be the umpteenth time today. “I told you-”

“Cousin,” Donghyuck says, stopping Mark. Johnny turns towards him, his face a little confused. “No, Elder Brother, if I am allowed. I apologize on my husband’s behalf for trespassing into your nest. My condition was critical, so I could not stop my mate from wronging you and your mate. Had I known, I would have rather spent the night out in the cold, under the snow, with the wolves as our companion and…”

“That’s enough. You got your point very clear, Your Grace.”

“Little Brother,” Donghyuck corrects him. “Since we are family now, it’s Little Brother. Or Cousin, if you want. But I like little brother best. I never had a big brother before.”

Johnny looks too baffled to answer.

“Wait,” Mark says, “aren’t you being a little too cheeky right now?”

“Besides,” Donghyuck continues, completely ignoring Mark, “I understand that what we did was improper, but I really wish you weren’t so heartless as to ignore your cousin, Elder Brother. You see, I am also cross with him. His mate refuses to talk to him, if not even his family is on his side wouldn’t it be too hard for him?”

For a moment, Johnny seems to be on the verge of being even more offended than before, but in the end he just throws his head back and laughs. Some of the other riders are hiding a smile too.

“You’re really an interesting one, Donghyuck of the Southern Islands. Come, let me show you my home. Open the gates!”

The double gates, iron spikes and wooden slide, are pulled up one after another, while the wind sweeps silver crystal away from the path.

Mark’s hand tighten around Donghyuck’s chest. The horse whinnies softly under them, eager to go home.

“Behold,” Johnny says. “Gyrfalcon, the last of the free cities of the Clairs.”

 

❃

 

Mark sleeps for days inside his head, but, when he wakes up, it hasn’t been more than a few hours. His limbs are stiff and the blood sits in his veins like molten bronze, pulling his whole body down. He lies under the comfort of warm, soft blankets that smell like holly and poinsettia, like mistletoe, and a little like the snow slowly falling outside . Hidden, barely there, the underlying smell of honey and flowers is what makes Mark’s eyes shoot open. Oh, that’s why it’s warm, he thinks, confusedly, as he realizes Donghyuck is curled under the blankets right next to him.

He wiggles in the darkness, turning around until he’s face to face with Donghyuck, and raises a hand to his face. Donghyuck’s eyes are shut tight and his lips slightly parted, like he’s struggling to breathe against the last shreds of fever. He doesn’t move when Mark traces his brow, his cute button nose, the curve of his cheeks. He only scrunches his nose when Mark’s fingers come to rest on his bottom lip, light enough to tickle - he stirs, but doesn’t wake up, only wiggles closer to Mark.

“He didn’t want to leave you.”

Mark looks up, to the slightly ajar door. The Lady of Gyr, his aunt, is standing in front of the room in only a nightgown and a heavy woolen shawl, a small candlelight in her hands.

“I apologize,” she murmurs, wrapping the shawl tighter around her shoulders when a draft makes her shiver. “I woke up and I couldn’t fall asleep again, so I came to see if you needed anything.”

Mark barely remembers entering his uncle’s manor before he collapsed from exhaustion. He didn’t even have a chance to greet her, or the lord of the house. He must have worried them a lot.

“You should go back to sleep, my lady” he says, softly, almost too formally. “It’s cold at night.”

In the Vale, a noblewoman, the lady of a household, would never dare to show herself in front of a male relative without at least three ladies-in-waiting and one guard. Not even in front of her son. But this is the Clairs, so Jiyoon of Gyr doesn’t leave the room. She closes the door and comes to sit on the armchair next to the bed for a moment.

“You scared me, little rascal. If something happened to you, how would I face the wrath of your mother?”

Mark almost smiles. “I’m fine, you see?”

She doesn’t smile back.

“Youngho and your boy told me what happened. You launched yourself in the middle of a storm to save him.” She sends a look at Donghyuck. “That was very reckless, young man, very brave but also very reckless.”

“Do you need to scold me now, Aunt? I’m tired.”

She caresses his head in response, softly, tenderly, like his mother used to do back when Mark was a baby, before the king forbade her from cuddling their son too much. It’s a touch Mark has missed, a touch he’s craved too many times during the lonely, fragrant nights of Dawyd, when the room was too big and he was small and his mom was far, far away.

“I’m happy you came to us in one piece, Your Highness, although it seems you somehow managed to get on my son’s bad side this time. He would not tell my why.” Mark scoffs and she laughs.

“Did you know what he was using that cabin for?” he asks, and her eyes twinkle.

“A mother could have guessed. She also could have chosen not to broach the subject with her son, because he is such a big baby, so easily embarrassed. Too much like his father, I fear. Your mother got all the common sense of the family, but sadly enough she wasn’t able to pass any to you.”

She’s openly mocking him now.

“My lady, why must you bully me like this?”

The woman’s smile widens. “If not you, who? If your mother was here, I would bully her for having given birth to such a cute, silly child instead. But she’s not, and between you and my husband, you’re definitely funnier to tease.”

Mark sighs. Even before becoming sisters-in-law, his mother and Johnny’s mother were close friends during their childhood. When Mark’s mother left to marry the king of Dawyd, Lady Jiyoon stayed behind and married the young Lord of Gyr, her best friend’s brother. The two women haven’t seen each other in more than one year, the last time when Mark presented as an Alpha and was crowned as the heir. _She must be missing mom a lot,_ Mark thinks, and doesn’t complain further.

Next to them, Donghyuck stirs again and mumbles something, slipping a little deeper under the blankets.

Lady Jiyoon makes a troubled face. “I should probably get going. I’m brazen enough to visit my nephew without an escort, but your mate must not be used to our unconventional customs. I don’t want to embarrass him.”

Mark laughs.

“He’s from the Islands, his customs are even weirder than ours. Apparently he and his sister used to sleep in the same bed even after they presented,” he whispers, lowering his voice like it’s something scandalous to make her laugh. She does laugh. And quite loud, until Mark shushes her.

“Don’t wake him up!”

“I won’t, I won’t. I hope you didn’t tell anyone in the Vale about such a breach of etiquette. I bet it would give half of the Court a stroke.” She shakes her head, looking quite amused. “You seem quite fond of him.”

Mark nods.

“He seems quite fond of you too. When you collapsed on my doorstep he refused to leave your side even if he was still feverish and needed treatment of his own. We had to put you two together here because he wouldn’t stop asking to be by your side.”

Mark feels blood rush to his face. Donghyuck? Did he, really? He looks at Donghyuck, his face half-hidden under the hem of the blanket, and silently curses himself for falling asleep and failing to witness such an extraordinary event. How cute he must have been - even if he wouldn’t have shown that side of himself to Mark.

“And yet you’re not sleeping in the same bed,” Lady Jiyoon continues, and Mark winces.

“How do you even know that?”

“Oh, I have my spies in Robyn. And in the rest of the country. Everyone in the Vale knows you’re not sharing a bed, which is ridiculous.”

“Isn’t it?”

“You will have to tell me about it, when you have recovered.” She gets up, collects the shawl that had slipped down her shoulder. “Thank you for indulging me, Mark. This old lady’s dreams are haunted by worries, but seeing you put my soul at ease.”

“Thank you for having me, aunt. Have a good night.”

“Good night, sweetheart.”

The door closes and Mark stays up for a moment, leaning slightly against the cushioned headboard of the bed, watching the snow fall outside.

“She left,” he says. “You can come out if you want.”

There is no answer, but Donghyuck burrows even deeper under the blankets, until the only visible part of him are his furrowed eyebrows and his golden curls. Mark brushes them away and Donghyuck sinks down completely, escaping his touch.

“You don’t want to? Be like that then. I’ve heard you were very cute and wanted to stay with me, so stay with me.”

He slides back to a lying position and turns back towards Donghyuck. In the darkness, he finds Donghyuck’s hipbone and his fingers curl there, on the jut of bone covered by skin and fabric, where Donghyuck is extremely ticklish.

Donghyuck’s voice, when he talks, sounds chalky from sleep and incredibly annoyed.

“We’re sleeping on a separate bed tomorrow.”

Mark nods mindlessly. “Who cares about tomorrow? Now come here.”

He draws Donghyuck in his arms and suffocates any complaints by closing his eyes and promptly falling back asleep.

 

❃

 

There’s a lonely cloud sitting on top of the Clairs, so thin that it’s barely there, almost like a silk bridal veil. Light shines through it, turning it into a crown.

Mark leans against the balustrade that circles one of the great terraces of the fortress of Gyr, and looks down, to the sweet slope on the side of the mountain, where one of the stable boys is trying to teach his mate how to break a bone on a sleigh.

“You shouldn’t have let him go out,” he murmurs. “He’s still hurt.”

Johnny leans over right next to him. He’s playing distractedly with the pendant locket he wears at his neck, one that Mark is sure used to be worn by Taeyong a few years ago.

“The doctor said he’s good enough to play,” Johnny says cheerfully, with a pat to Mark’s back. “You did a very good job patching him up. Besides, you’re leaving soon, better let him see some real snow before you go back to that slush downstream.”

“This is not going to end well,” Mark continues, pretending he hasn’t heard a single word. “He’s only got one good leg left and he’s gonna break it.”

“I have no authority over a prince, cousin, let alone a Consort Prince. You’re the only one who can tell your husband what to do. Yet you’re not talking to him.”

“He’s not talking to me, that’s different.”

The snow is too bright, a sharp white.

It’s been a week since Mark and Donghyuck set foot in Gyr, a week Donghyuck spent mostly in bed, in the room that had belonged to Mark’s mother, and then to Mark during all the winters he spent in Gyr. Mark has spent this week talking to his uncle and aunt, to his cousin, to the people of the Clairs, strengthening his relationship with his mother’s ancestral land. The Clairs are the farthest of the lands that will one day be under his rule. These people need to see their prince. They need to remember he’s one of them. It’s what he tells himself as he avoids his husband, day after day, struck by the irrational fear that Donghyuck will turn against him again like the scorpion in that legend of the Islands - stinging the hand that feeds it because it’s just in its nature.

It was easier in Robyn, it was easier when Donghyuck could handle a sword and Mark could talk to him in lunges and parries, words whispered under their breaths, over the flash of their blades meeting. But Donghyuck is hurt, and vulnerable, and weak, and when Donghyuck is hurt it’s when he turns crafty and resourceful and _mean_ , turning all his broken shards into a weapon, so Mark chooses to let him be. He sleeps in another room, he busies himself with other people. If Donghyuck is angry, he doesn’t show it - he is angry, Mark can feel it through the bond, but he’s too tired to deal with it and he doesn’t want to fight here, in the Clairs, he doesn’t want to turn this place so dear to him and his memories into a battlefield.

“Won’t you talk to me, Mark?”

“Did your mother put you to this?” he asks, and Johnny shakes his head.

“ You’re leaving tomorrow morning and I don’t know when I’ll see you again this year. I cannot claim I give good advice, but I would give what I can.”

Donghyuck’s sleigh capsizes and Mark almost jumps down the balustrade, but thankfully his mate’s laugh echoes in the air. When he gets up, there’s snow in his hair and he shakes it away. Mark follows the line of his shoulders, the curve of his neck meeting the line of his jaw, the muscle tensing when Donghyuck throws his head back to laugh some more.

“Something happened between us,” Mark says in the end. “Something shameful.”

Johnny waits for him to continue, so he does.

“Not now. Before. In Dawyd. I can’t tell you what it is. Donghyuck wouldn’t want it. I promised…We promised it would stay with us, and I won’t break his trust on this. I’m trying not to break his trust in general. He doesn’t like it when I do that, apparently.”

He forces himself to smile as if it is a funny joke. It doesn’t feel like a joke. It’s ash in his mouth.

The look Johnny gives him is foul, but full of disbelief at the same time.

“You didn’t force yourself on him, did you?”

Mark shakes his head. “You can’t trick me into telling you things like this, Johnny. Think whatever you want. I probably deserve it too.”

“Then I won’t think anything. Donghyuck is the only one who knows, but since he came here he never looked at you like you deserve anything bad.”

“That I really don’t understand..”

On the slope, Donghyuck gets roped into a sleigh race. He looks back at Mark, and it could be a request for permission. Mark doesn’t say anything and in the end it’s Johnny that tells them to go, _but be careful,_ he mouths, _the prince can’t get hurt again._

The group of children turns back to climb the slope. A little girl holds Donghyuck’s hand to lead him.

“So that’s why you’re not sleeping together. Or being together. Or even looking at each other.”

“Mh.”.

“Are you sure that’s what he wants? He looks lonely. What if he’s just waiting for you to cross the distance?”

Mark shakes his head, then leans it over his arm, his chin cushioned against the fur of his jacket as he stares at the children lining up at the edge of the slope, each with their own little sled. Donghyuck is not a child, but he looks like one when he smiles like that.

“No, cousin,” Mark answers in the end. “For all the time we’ve been married, he was always the one running and I was always the one chasing. And every time I caught him, it was just another trap, another fight. Donghyuck… I used to think he hated me, but now I don’t think he does, or ever did. He just… doesn’t know what to do? He’s never been in a relationship and he keeps messing up. He might be even worse than me.”

Johnny nods, his brow creasing as he focuses on Mark’s words.

“So, what? Are you letting him come to you on his own this time?”

Oh, but that wouldn’t work either. Donghyuck hates being the one in charge. He wants to be, so badly, but when he actually has the chance, he hates it. The person in charge is the person who gets things wrong, the person who’s most likely to make mistakes, and Donghyuck is too much of a golden prince to make mistakes. He doesn’t want to be that person. Which is both like him and not like him at all, because Mark never knew Donghyuck to be afraid of making mistakes.

Even now, as he gets ready to tumble down the snowy slope for the first time in his life, Donghyuck looks fearless. Only when it comes to Mark, he shows his fear. He shows fear like it’s a punishment. Selfish and clumsy and sometimes mean. What kind of a mate can he be?

Mark thought about this for so long. What to do with Donghyuck? What to do, when they never seem to be the right person for each other? When they suffer from the same flaws and when they try to show the same strengths to each other, they end up competing over it. Is there even a way to make this work? Is there even a reason to make this work, when everything they do is hurt each other?

“I’m trying,” Mark answers, after careful consideration. “I’m trying to meet him in the middle. I want to show him that I can give him all the space he needs, but when he needs me I’ll be there for him. I want him to do the same for me, so I’m trying to show him how… Give him a good example.”

“You’re really putting some thought into this.” Johnny seems quite impressed. “I always thought you would be the kind of man who is intense but brainless when it comes to love.”

“Me, why?”

“Because you never showed interest in anyone. Someone who has so many pent up feelings would probably go all the way for their mate once they find the right person. To the point of turning into a fool.”

 _Ah,_ Mark thinks bitterly. Johnny really knows him way too well. That is quite the accurate evaluation. It’s not like he doesn’t want to lay the entire world at Donghyuck’s feet, it’s just that Donghyuck wouldn’t know what to do with it. Mark masks his irritation at being read so easily with a shrug.

“Been there, done that. He wasn’t happy. I think…” Oh, it’s difficult to understand Donghyuck and the dark recesses of his labyrinthic mind, but Mark has gained a few clues ever since their bond strengthened. “I think he has a very rational, almost strategic view of love. When I realized I love him, I could only think about him and how to make him like me back. In hindsight, now I feel very stupid. He must have thought I was acting like a spoiled child, like I wanted everything immediately.”

“Aren’t we always, when we fall in love? You know, your feelings are yours. You’re allowed to feel strongly about him and it’s not your fault if he doesn’t feel strongly about you.”

 _It’s not like that,_ Mark thinks. He doesn’t know the extent of Donghyuck’s feelings - and, unless Donghyuck _chooses_ to tell him, he might never know - but he knows Donghyuck has loved him since a long time ago, a lot before Mark did, a lot longer than Mark did, and he still took all the precautions he could so that Mark wouldn’t like him back because he thought it would be too dangerous. He was protecting himself and Mark both.

“It’s not about who feels the most. It’s just that I was so naive about it it makes my blood turn sour in shame. I thought… I don’t know, I thought love was like a fairytale,” - it did feel like a fairytale, but a tale of the fairies of the swamps, bloody and merciless and full of regrets. “I thought my feelings alone would be enough to make everything right.”

Oh, but if feelings alone were enough, wouldn’t they have already found their happy ending a long time ago? For how long did Donghyuck harbor secret feelings for Mark? For how long did he crush them because it was the right thing to do? No, Donghyuck certainly doesn’t believe in fairytales. Maybe he did, once, but not anymore.

“So now you’re trying to prove to him that you can think with your head and not only with your dick?” Johnny asks, and Mark turns and punches him in the shoulder.

“I think he wants me to prove that my feelings aren’t shallow,” he explains, in a moment of clarity. It’s slowly coming down to him, like the pieces of a puzzle coming together slowly, the first hint of the figure they form taking shape under his eyes. “I mean, he never asked, and he should really work on that, to be honest, because most of the times I don’t have a single clue… But he thinks he wants reassurance that this isn’t just a crush born through our bond and in virtue of his incredible ass, but that I am willing to pay some serious thought into it and how to make it work despite, well, the entire world being against us.”

Johnny winces.

“That was roughly too much information, cousin. I literally do not want to hear wax poetry over your mate’s ass. But if you put it like that, I guess I can understand the problem a little better. We had… kind of a similar problem, when I decided to court Taeyong…”

Mark’s head perks up. “What problem?”

“A trust problem. See, as much as he seems to be conflicted about it, Donghyuck is an Omega, and you’re his Alpha, and what Omegas usually look for into an Alpha, what really attracts them, is the Alpha’s ability to protect them. But wasn’t your Donghyuck actually raised to be an Alpha? So everything you can do, he can also do. He seems already quite able to protect himself, so he probably wants you to show him what you can bring to the plate other than your undying love for him. I mean, how protected could he actually feel if he can even beat you in a fight-”

“Roughly half of the time,” Mark points out.

“Not my point. Moreover, he seems to be doing better than Lucas, and isn’t Lucas, like, your best knight?”

Mark begrudgingly agrees. Then, he frowns.

“Wait, you think he wants me to protect him? Donghyuck? Have you seen Donghyuck? No, you haven’t, but I can promise you that if he fell and I tried to help him up he’d probably end up biting my hand instead. He hates getting help from people, and especially me!”

“He doesn’t _really_ have a practical need for your protection. But as an Omega, he wants it. Well, I wouldn’t know personally, but Taeyong told me this: Omegas actually need the Alpha to make them feel safe. It’s inborn, they crave that on an instinctual level. He needs to trust you in order to feel good, and he needs to trust you a lot because we’re talking about… trusting all of himself to you. That’s why he calls to you when he’s distressed, he _wants_ you to help him. But seeing you too caught up in your feelings and unable to be rational probably doesn’t make him feel very safe.”

Mark blinks. He does it again. He opens his mouth, closes it. Oh, oh. _Now_ he gets it.

“Oh,” he murmurs. “So that’s what that Trial of the Bond thing was about.”

Johnny’s friendly facade drops as his eyes widen and he stares back at Mark with something like horror on his face.

“Sorry, did you just say Trial of the Bond?”

Oh, fuck.

“It’s a long story.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to think this story is a lot longer and complicated than I initially thought. So start from the beginning and tell me everything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter: a winter ball! where no one dances! maybe a convo about this trial of the bond funny stuff?
> 
> (also this is just a reminder but just because mark is focusing on himself and what he needs to do it doesn't mean he's not aware of donghyuck's shortcomings or that he thinks donghyuck is completely innocent when it comes to their failures as mates.)


	32. xxxii. to have life again, winter must pass overhead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so. it's always the right time for christmas isn't it. ahah. i made up this chapter from nowhere (i wasn't planning to write any of this and it just happened) so it might feel rushed or out of place but i don't care, life is so hard and i wanted a winter ball so i wrote myself a winter ball. tl,dr this chapter is completely useless and self-indulgent.  
> also my uni is going to start soon so i don't know when i will update again. please be patient. with the time needed for the updates, with the quality of this work, with my whining in the notes. thank you for everything always. your comment light up my days for the entire week.  
> Also for everyone who's quarantined at home, please be strong and patient. Do your part so that everyone can be safe. It's hard for me because I'm so far away from home, but I'm trying to be strong. We can do this ♡♡♡ To everyone else, stay safe!
> 
> \- [chapter title source](https://avolitorial.tumblr.com) (most of the chapter titles come from the online works of an independent poet, they're absolutely amazing so please support them if you can)  
> \- Songs for this chapter are Frostfall by Jeremy Soule, Where to Begin by Adam Watts and Winter Song by Sarah Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson ([playlist](https://twitter.com/aprilclaws/status/1156324062047670272))  
> \- Free promo for [golden twins style concepts](https://twitter.com/_EMPATHV/status/1237687935778029568) by @_EMPATHV

The Prince of the Vale leans against the balustrade, feels the first gusts of night breeze on his face. They’re gentle, quiet. It’s going to be a long night outside. A silent night. Inside, it’s going to be a night of light, a night of dances and laughter, a night of hope.

It’s the longest night of the year and the servants are lighting up the candles in the great hall of the castle - so many of them, enough for the Longest Night. From his spot in the lower terrace, Mark can look up and see the windows burn gold, already brighter than the tired light of the setting sun. Under his eyes, the snow is surrendering its white to the rapidly advancing darkness. The slopes and cliffs surrounding the city turn indigo and cobalt, pale blues deepening and darkening as they precipitate into the clouds below.

It's nice, peaceful even, and yet Mark feels nothing but restlessness within himself.

A guard wearing white and blue, the colors of the Clairs, has already come to pick Donghyuck up and escort him inside. They’re going to dress him up for tonight, brush his unruly curls and wrap him in velvet and silk for the Ball of the Longest Night. Mark will pick him up from his room before the ball starts.

The winter ball tonight will be a first for Donghyuck, but in a way it’s a first for Mark too, because it’s his first time spending the Longest Night in the Clairs, with his mother's family. As a prince of the Vale his place has always been in Dawyd, next to the king, especially during the celebrations for the new year.

“That's why you should stay,” the Lady of Gyr had told Mark the day after he and Donghyuck arrived in the Clairs. “You might not get another chance.”

Mark had hesitated. He had too many things to do in Robyn. He was worried for the state of the fortress, and for the people of the village, and for the hunters he had left in his knights' care, although they have already received news that they all came back safe.

“They don’t celebrate the Longest Night in the Islands, do they?” his aunt insisted. At his nod, she continued, “Then you cannot leave. What kind of family would we be to deny your poor boy the chance to spend it with us?”

And Mark had sighed and sulked, but he really didn’t want to make Donghyuck spend the Longest Night under the wind and snow on their way back to Robyn.

“The Longest Night is a night of new beginnings,” the Lady of Gyr told Donghyuck later over tea. “A night of open doors. On the stroke of midnight, the doors will be open to let the old year out and the new year in. It's quite a pretty sight. You'll love it, trust me.”

The celebrations for the end of the year are smaller in the Clairs than in the Vale. The lord of the castle organizes a banquet and a ball in his house to celebrate the opening of the doors, inviting all the highest offices of the city. Not everyone can participate, but warm food will be served to everyone who lives in Gyr - soup and bush meat and sweet biscuits made by the women of the palace in the shape of birds of prey, condors and falcons and eagles, the spirits that protect the Clairs - and all the villages in the mountains will also receive a small tribute in grain, a token of trust, to be shared among the common people in the name of the lord of the castle.

If they were in Dawyd there wouldn't be any open doors, just the huge ball in the palace, crystal lights and a feast worth of a king. Donghyuck would be wearing gold, Mark reasons. In Robyn he would’ve worn black, the only ceremonial dress he had hastily managed to pack as they left Dawyd in the middle of the night - quick, quick, before the king could change his mind and chase them back into the cold of the stone halls of his palace. Mark doesn’t know what Donghyuck will wear here. He mulls over the thought for a few moments, and when he looks up he meets Johnny’s disapproving eyes.

“You haven’t listened to a single word I just said, did you?”

Mark shrugs.

“What do you think Donghyuck will wear tonight?” he asks, innocently.

His cousin’s frown deepens.

“Come inside you fool, you’re going to catch a cold. And you should worry about your outfit, not his.”

“I’m worrying about both,” Mark shoots back. “We need to match.”

Johnny blinks, confused, until Mark explains.

“What if he doesn’t match with me but he matches with someone else?”

Johnny stares, for a moment, before he laughs right in Mark’s face. It’s not even teasing, just genuinely entertained guffawing.

“Gods and goddesses, you are so whipped. Now I understand why Donghyuck doesn’t want to deal with you. You’re a caveman.”

Mark snorts and catches the clothes his cousin is throwing at him.

“Treat these well. They were supposed to be for when I brought Taeyong to visit my parents.”

Mark looks at the bundle of blue fabric in his hand, the brocade heavy in his hands. Every single thread feels like it’s cutting into his skin.

“I can’t take these,” he tries to say, but Johnny shakes his head.

“When I get to marry Taeyong, because I _will_ marry Taeyong one day, you’ll give me one of your pretty prince vests.”

Mark smiles at that. He lets his cousin help with the fastening of the cuffs. In the Vale it’s usually an attendant who does this, but in the Clairs it’s family, or someone’s spouse. In the Islands… he doesn’t know and he makes a mental note to ask next time, but Donghyuck used to help him sometimes, when they lived in Dawyd. Johnny pulls the strings to tighten the jacket around Mark’s torso. He slightly bites on his bottom lips as he checks the result.

“It fits fine,” he comments. “Thankfully Mother got it shortened for your valleyman tiny legs.”

He ducks down to avoid Mark’s punch.

“Will Donghyuck also wear blue?” Mark asks, and his eyes flicker to the side, where the window is. The sky is dark, it’s almost time to go.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen the clothes sewn for Taeyong. It was supposed to be a surprise. Now i guess it will be your surprise.”

Mark ignores the wistful tone and moves to the side to help Johnny into his own clothes. His father would choke on his own blood if he could see him, the Crown Prince of the Vale attending to one of his vassals. He taps Johnny’s side so he can duck a little and Mark can smoothen a little crease on the collar of his shirt.

Their eyes meet.

“Have you thought what to do with Donghyuck?” Johnny asks, and when Mark sighs his voice hardens into his usual, petulant 'older and more experienced cousin' tone. “You need to talk to him, Mark. This is not a joke. You don’t mess up with a bond without consequences.”

“I want to,” Mark replies. “I was going to, but then he fell sick. And now things are too strange. We never get a moment to ourselves and I don’t want to turn this into another show. We spent months in the Vale being ogled at by everyone, being told what to do the entire time. I couldn’t even look at him without someone telling me their opinion on what Omegas like him are good for.”

“You’re a prince, Mark. The spotlight never bothered you before.”

“It doesn’t bother me when I’m in the spotlight, but it bothers me when _he_ is. And it bothers him too. It’s part of the reason why I took him to Robyn. And it’s why I don’t want to talk to him now. I’d rather not announce what happened to the entire kingdom, not when everyone already knows we are working through some problems.”

“That is an understatement. What Donghyuck did… is not something to take lightly. If it were to get out…”

“Which is why I only told you,” Mark concludes for him. “Trust me, I know. I know. It’s Donghyuck that doesn’t know. What he did, he didn’t seem completely aware of the implications.”

He thinks back of Donghyuck, feverish and anxious in that cold cave that smelled of his blood, Donghyuck and his words that sounded like a prophecy or a spell, magic that didn’t leave a mark but only a faint warmth in Mark’s hands. He had wondered, back then, about who might have told him, because Donghyuck has never been educated in Omega matters, and as far as Mark knows the Trial of the Bond is something that belongs to the traditions of the Vale. Someone _must_ have told him, but that doesn’t explain how he suddenly learned to do it. (A fluke, maybe, but a fluke that pulsed through Mark’s hand, swollen with magic.)

“That’s why you have to talk to him. If he wasn’t sure about it he might have done it wrong. Who knows what kind of witchcraft he did to you.”

Johnny starts rambling again, about Mark and being so smitten for his mate he won’t even ask him things, and about recklessness and property and traditions. Truth is, Mark doesn’t really care. Jeno was right in the end. Donghyuck doesn’t ask for things, but this time… this time Donghyuck asked something from him. And Mark… he’s not that great at figuring things out - not these things, at least - but he’s quite good at following instructions. Maybe that’s why they struggled to work out in the beginning. With Donghyuck, it was always a work of guessing, fumbling in the darkness, stumbling around over and over again, running in circles to end up in his arms, unhappy and frustrated and more ignorant than before. But this, this is clear. This is what Donghyuck wants. It’s quite the big demand, but, as blinding as it is, it’s a light in the darkness.

 _This is the kind of man Donghyuck likes,_ Mark thinks. _Smart and brave and wise and strong._ He wonders, he wonders, because Donghyuck refused to tell him anything after that wrecked night in Dawyd, the last night of his heat, but that night Donghyuck indeed told Mark he loved him - he had loved him. (And Mark doesn’t understand, because he hasn’t been yet, smart and brave and wise and strong, he hasn’t been a king, so how did Donghyuck come to like someone like him? Why? What did he see in him? And there are so many questions, not nearly enough answers. The Trial of the Bond, though, that is an answer. Cryptic and contradictory and obscure in meaning, but it is an answer and Mark latches onto it. He refuses to let go.)

Darkness has already fallen onto the palace. Johnny drags Mark outside, tucks the dried petals of a mountain flower into his pocket so that they spread a fresh scent.

“Come on, let’s get you to your old room so you can seduce your witch prince into telling you the truth,” he whispers.

“For someone who talks so much about witchcraft,” Mark tells him as they walk down the corridors, “you shut up pretty fast as soon as he so much looked at you.”

The tips of Johnny’s ears turn pink as he laughs boisterously, trying to cover his embarrassment. “He’s cute, I’ll give him that. And smart. And last time I saw him he beat me fair and square, so I might be a little bit intimidated. But don’t worry cousin, if he makes you suffer I’m still going to challenge him to a first blood duel.”

“Only first blood?” Mark whines, eyes glowing in myrth. “Am I worth so little?”

“It’s not that you’re worth little, it’s just that if I ever shed any more blood than the first I would have to fight you too because you’d jumped in to defend him, wouldn’t you?”

Mark laughs hard at that, unrestrained and free and in a way that makes a guard at the door smile back at him as if he had heard their shared joke.

“Oh, Johnny, if I had to be honest, the only reason for me to come between the two of you would be to defend you from him.”

“Is he that good?”

“Incredibly so.”

“I don’t think he’s that good. I think you’re just smitten,” Johnny says. He stops in front of the staircase. A blue carpet has been spread down on the dark stone. Candles shine on the banister, leading the way to the room that belonged to Mark's mother, and then to Mark, and now it's Donghyuck’s. Mark walks the first three steps before he turns back.

“I probably am. And he probably isn’t. Still, he’d win. That’s what Donghyuck does. He wins.”

Johnny bows at him.

“I think you win this time, Your Highness. Go on, get your prize.”

 

❃

 

Mark knocks twice, his hands damp and his chest tight because he knows how pretty Donghyuck can be when he wants to be.

Donghyuck’s eyes are kohled. Someone, someone did this. Donghyuck is not allowed to wear heavy makeup in the Vale - he’s a married man - but someone looked at his face and thought, they thought he wasn’t lethal enough as he usually is. The jacket, velveteen and quilted with crystal beads, is midnight blue, just like the ribbon that ties the curly hair at his nape. The rest is white. White shirt, white pants, and a long white cape embroidered with sceneries of wind goddesses blowing their icy breaths onto the mountains - and this is not part of the original outfit, this is a garment Mark inherited from his mother, a garment his aunt must have kept stored for him, unpacked only for Donghyuck to wear. White for the snow, blue for the endless sky, the colors of the Clairs. The same colors Mark is wearing.

Mark offers Donghyuck his arm. His throat feels tight. He remembers another ball, another city, another crowd to charm. Right before Mark left, right before Donghyuck’s heat, before everything changed. He remembers how easily Donghyuck had won over the crowd, over Mark as well. He will do the same tonight, he is sure.

Donghyuck is not wearing any gloves and his hand is warm on Mark’s. He seems distant, like no matter how close he is to Mark he’s still a thousand miles away, and Mark squeezes his hand in an attempt to pull him closer. He realizes, from the way Donghyuck’s fingers curl around his own instinctively before he stops himself, that despite the facade Donghyuck is feeling quite shy.

“I won’t be able to dance,” Donghyuck murmurs. “My leg still…”

“It’s fine. It’s fine to me. This is not the Vale, you don’t need to… you don’t need to do anything, or impress anyone. We don’t even have to stay for the whole thing if you feel tired. Just be yourself. And have fun. My aunt will not be happy if you don’t have fun.”

Donghyuck almost smiles. “Easy for you to say. They already love you.” He takes a deep breath. “They’re quite intimidating, your mountain folks.”

“I feel like you’re even more intimidating to them. They might write ballads about you after tonight.”

Donghyuck sends him an unconvinced glance, as if to ask, _am I that special?_

“You’re stunning,” Mark answers, and that seems enough to quench Donghyuck’s anxiety.

“Then lead the way, Prince of the Clairs,” he says, using the title people used to call Mark back when he was a child, in scorn. Prince of the Clairs. It sounds like a compliment coming from Donghyuck’s mouth, the words as golden as he is, infinitely more sweeter than the way he ever called Mark _Prince of the Vale_.

 

❃

 

When they make their entrance, there’s no one who isn’t staring at the prince of the Islands, at this boy who came from so far away it might as well be the other side of the world.

Everyone is looking at Donghyuck except for Mark, who can only stare ahead as he carefully leads his mate down the stairs, where they bow in front of the hosts. When he finally dares to turn and look at his husband again, it’s not to Donghyuck’s face, but to his chest. The ribbon at the front of his shirt is a little crooked and the jacket falls a bit too loosely on his shoulders. Donghyuck should fasten it, Mark thinks, then it would fit perfectly, and his hands twitch with the need to do it himself. (He’d let them linger against Donghyuck’s chest, look at him to see if the touch makes him gasp. There’s so many people here, though. The distance between them crackles with energy and Donghyuck is closer than he’s ever been for the past weeks, and yet so distant, so unreal. Mark doesn’t know what he’do if he were to put his hands on him and realize he’s close instead, close and real.)

“I’ll get you something to drink,” he murmurs, when the need to touch Donghyuck threatens to shatter his resolve, and he slips away before he can do something pathetic like stuttering. Donghyuck’s fingers don’t curl around his to keep him there, but they follow Mark’s hand until they have to part from it. He doesn’t look at Mark and maybe it’s for the best.

(Mark is not sure how he wants Donghyuck to look at him tonight. It’s precious to have Donghyuck here, in the house of his familty, the house where his mother was born, where she grew up - among these halls, these cold corridors full of drafts and ice and love. It’s precious and dangerous. It’s like baring his soul and memories, showing Donghyuck everything Mark holds dearest. All this trust, it’s making Donghyuck, too, wary and hesitant, hyperaware.)

Mark walks to the table at the farther end of the room, right under one of the large windows. He pours himself some wine, breathes. From this spot he has a perfect view of his husband turning to greet one of the generals stationed on the Clairs. The white cape twirls around Donghyuck, following his footsteps like a bridal veil. Under the soft, subdued lights of the ballroom in the fortress of Gyr, he looks like he just came out of a book of fairytales.

“He has the looks of a prince,” Johnny’s father told Mark only a few days ago. “Maybe even the looks of a king.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Mark had asked.

“That depends,” the Lord of Gyr had given Mark a deep, calculative look, “on whether he’s walking behind you or in front of you.”

 _What if he walks next to me,_ Mark wonders. _Will he make me look bad? Someone so brilliant, born to rule, blessed by the gods, am I good enough to walk next to this boy?_ Everyone falls for Donghyuck of the Southern Islands, after all. Mark thinks of Jungwoo who was ready to be exiled for Donghyuck. He thinks of Johnny and the way he was instantly charmed with just a few words and a smile. He thinks of himself, of the himself who always listened, always obeyed, never questioned, going against his father for the first time in what feels like forever, not because Donghyuck asked him, but because Donghyuck deserved it - he deserves someone willing to stand up for him.

It comes down to this. Donghyuck has the power to move people, and he doesn’t use it to maneuver them like pawns, he gives it to them so that they can make the choice by themselves. It’s subtle, maybe kind of delicate, not a power that needs to be upheld by the heavy steel of a weapon or the even heavier gold of a crown. It’s bright and airy, all pride and righteousness and shameless beauty. It’s in the way Donghyuck looks up right now and meets Mark’s eyes from across the room, making the music stop and the light soften around them so that the rest of the world drifts away. And he tilts his head upwards, graceful, _graceful_ , looking otherworldly and immortal, like he only had to blink to be able to read right into Mark’s mind - through all his insecurities flaws, through the darkness that festers and deepens, growing sour and jealous of Donghyuck’s bright light. Donghyuck looks at him like he can see all of him with just one glance, like he could hold Mark's entire essence in his hands if he wanted, and instead of using that power to bring Mark down Donghyuck lifts him up, up, up, until they’re at the same height. Until he can stare into Mark’s eyes and tell him, “Stop putting yourself down. If you think you’re not enough for me, then be better. Be better.” That’s what he did in the cave when he claimed Mark with his own greedy, unreasonable Trial of the Bond. And Johnny is right, they should talk about it, but every instinct in Mark is telling him he’s cradling something fragile in his hands, something that will break if he shakes it too hard, carelessly. He’s so delicate, so precious, so sharp, still made of blown glass, this princely mate of Mark’s.

“Aren’t you going to dance, Your Highness?”

Mark pushes his traitorous thoughts away and lays the flute on the table. The girl who just spoke is a young Omega lady, newly presented, the daughter of an important master of the Guild of Merchants. The man is not royalty and normally his daughter shouldn’t even be able to talk to the Crown Prince, but it’s not like royalty ever mattered to the Clairs and she was brave enough to ask. She probably has a boy in the crowd she wants to make jealous by dancing with a prince. She bats her eyelashes at him in a coquettish but honest way and Mark almost says yes. But his eyes are suddenly caught on the hem of Donghyuck’s cape, the way the beading traps the light of the candles and reflects it in rainbow drops around the room.

“I’m sorry, my mate is not dancing today,” he answers in the end, “and my first dance can only be with him.”

The girl pouts and Mark meets Donghyuck’s eyes from the other side of the room. He looks a little lost all alone there. _Just a moment, I’m coming_ , he tries to convey. 

“What a pity that the Prince Consort is not feeling well. I was hoping to dance with two princes tonight, and I don’t get even one.”

What a shameless lady she is. “Don’t be sad, my lady. Even if the Prince Consort was feeling well,” he answers, trying to keep a serious face and not laugh in her face, “I would probably just dance with him for the whole night.”

That’s when she realizes she’s being teased and she leaves with a quick bow. Mark decides to come back with the ale he promised but another girl corners him, asking for a dance. And then another, and another. He chats with some of the girls and with their mothers, kindly turning down their invitation and staring pleadingly at his aunt until she gently directs them somewhere else. That’s when the head of one of the local tribes closes down on him, exchanging pleasantries and inquiring about the king and the requests of provisions of the borderlands. Then after him it’s a captain of the army, a rich minor lord, a minstrel asking the prince for his blessing.

“I’m sorry, I need to find my husband if you want to excuse me.”

Mark politely tries to dribble them, but the beginning of the ball swallows every other noise. His eyes scan the room for Donghyuck and his golden curls, narrowing into a frown when they finally find him.

Donghyuck is not alone anymore. He’s standing to the side, talking to Johnny. He leans a little closer to hear something Johnny is telling him in soft, hushed tones. His eyes suddenly meet Mark’s and worry flashes inside them, and Mark feels anger bubbling in his chest because he told Johnny he could deal with this by himself, didn’t he? The last thing he needs is an overbearing relative poking at the hornet’s nest that is Donghyuck’s flower-crowned head. Johnny means well, but if Mark has learnt something from Dawyd is that nothing good can come from someone standing between Donghyuck and himself. So he strides through the ballroom, almost running over a swirling couple, and catches Donghyuck’s hand with his own, stealing him away.

“Hey, we weren’t done,” Johnny tries to say, but Mark ignores him to look at Donghyuck.

“Dance with me,” he murmurs to his husband, and Donghyuck lets himself be pulled, follows Mark easily, cocking an eyebrow at the suggestion.

“You know I can’t dance. My leg hurts.”

“Whatever, then sit down with me and listen to the music. Don’t talk to my cousin. Don’t ever talk to my cousin again. He has no right to butt in like that.”

Donghyuck wobbles a little and Mark realizes his leg must be hurting and makes him sit down on one of the cushioned sofas under one of the windows. He still hasn’t let go of his hand and he doesn’t plan to. It’s like holding a small songbird in his hands. Under his fingers, Donghyuck’s pulse flutters nervously.

“Don’t be angry at Johnny,” Donghyuck says. “He wasn’t threatening me or anything, he only had some questions about the mating customs in the Islands. He wants to make sure I’m treating you right.”

“It’s not his place to ask, not when I asked him not to. Not during a ball, not now.” Not with so many people around. Not when this should be solved by Mark and Mark alone.

“He just cares a lot about you. He’s worried I’ll break your soft little heart.”

Mark scoffs. “He comes quite late. Didn’t you do that already?”

The inflection and tone of Donghyuck’s voice don’t change, but somehow his reply sounds sharper in Mark’s ears.

“I did. And quite many times. You don’t seem too heartbroken though.”

“How could I, when you always put it back together?”

He didn’t mean to say that but he did and now he can’t take it back anymore. Donghyuck looks up but they’re too close. His nose bumps into Mark’s. Around them someone is laughing, someone is cheering, someone plays the violin in the stone hall of the Fortress of Gyr. Someone is probably staring at them, and Mark almost wants to kiss Donghyuck hard enough to make these shameless people feel like they were intruding - they always are. He wants to kiss Donghyuck in a way that will make people talk about it on market’s day, over the price of onions and potatoes, young maidens sighing and swooning and swinging their basket around on their way home, wondering when they will too find someone who will kiss them like that.

“Do you remember what the Longest Night stand for?” he asks, under his breath, almost on Donghyuck’s lips.

Donghyuck’s eyebrows furrow slightly, then relax immediately. “New beginnings,” he answers.

“Rebirth. Hope. Forgiveness.”

Donghyuck’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t back away. He never backs away.

“I’m glad we’re here,” Mark continues. “I’m glad you're here, with me.” 

The bell will soon ring midnight, and the big gates of the hall are already being opened wide to let the time flow away, to let the Longest Night come and leave, to let winter visit the halls like a welcome guest so that it can finish its journey and leave the door open for spring. A new beginning, Mark thinks, and his eyes can’t leave Donghyuck’s lips, his gaze heavy enough to make Donghyuck blush. It’s faint, almost invisible on his skin. Mark sees him swallow, he sees him blink. Donghyuck has short eyelashes, thick and dark, darker than his hair, and his lips tremble, and his hand brushes against Mark’s without lingering.

That’s when the music stops abruptly and every couple on the floor breaks up with a bow. Donghyuck, too, jerks away, the moment between them ruined and lost, just as the tolls of the bronze bell outside the castle start ringing for the end of the year. Ten, eleven, twelve tolls, and right as everyone starts cheering and celebrating Donghyuck looks up, talks only for Mark to listen.

“I think,” he says in a whisper, “I think I owe you an explanation.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter: i wanted to kiss you but there's this giant misunderstanding between us and you can't see it but it's like really big and really invasive 
> 
> also for once free promo for myself: [baby donghyuck](https://twitter.com/honeymouthed_/status/1238014539829882880) even though i can't draw to save my life, i feel like i've exhausted all my drawing capability for the next three years by doing this

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a kudo if you liked it! Remember, kudos make writers happy and happy writers are productive writers!  
> Love ♥


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